Organized Crime & Triad Bureau

Kirk Wong's follow-up to CRIME STORY is another police procedural movie, this time starring THE KILLER's Danny Lee. This film forgoes the action and martial arts of the director's previous film in favour of a more realistic and organised film that follows the dual story lines of a squad of cops and a criminal gang; each side finds itself perplexed and outwitted at times by the other, while the individual participants are stretched to breaking point.

Sad to say, ORGANIZED CRIME & TRIAD BUREAU is a bit of a testing film given that long stretches play out where not much really happens. For a film with this amount of dialogue, the characterisation is surprisingly slim; we learn a few things about the honour of the leads, but not too much. For a thriller, there isn't much suspense despite the intrigues of the plot and the chase-focused structure of the narrative.

Lee is a solid lead, although his wind is stolen by the reliable Anthony Wong (HARD-BOILED), playing one of his more sympathetic villainous characters. A near-hysterical Cecilia Yip acts in support alongside Fan Siu-Wong, who you may remember from THE STORY OF RICKY. Where this film does get good is in the large-scale, action-packed climax, which is quite brilliant and brings to mind the sheer bravado of the following year's HEAT, directed by Michael Mann; it's a pity the rest of the movie didn't follow suit.