From the writers-directors of Cold War, multiply their previous budget by a few times, with a cast of who's who from Korea, China and Hong Kong, come Helios, the most logic defying film I have seen this year.
Synopsis - A portable nuclear device, DC8, has been stolen from South Korea by a ruthless criminal (Chang Chen) and his accomplice (Janice Man). As the weapon will change hands in Hong Kong, Lee (Nick Cheung) from the territory's Counter Terrorism Response Unit sets up a task force, which includes police officer Fan (Shawn Yue), to deal with the crisis. He enlists physics professor Siu (Jacky Cheung) as an adviser and has to work with South Korean weapon experts Choi (Ji Jin Hee) and Pok (Choi Si Won). Despite their efforts, the elusive criminal mastermind, Helios, is always a step ahead of Lee.
Review - The whole movie is based on a MacGuffin which at first I thought is a weapon, but later on it becomes a criminal mastermind. The actors talk and talk non-stop in such an overly serious tone and wear one single frowning/brooding/angry/nondescript expression throughout. There is so much lambo humbo mambo jumbo spewing out which might as well be nonsense to me. First rule of the thumb is show me, don't tell me. For example, everybody keeps proclaiming the power of the bomb but I just couldn't feel the danger. At one time I even turned to my wife and said "I seriously hope Hong Kong gets entirely destroyed". Then right at the end of the movie somebody has the bright idea to put title cards to show the statistics of the what if disaster if the bomb did explode. That made me feel so dumb and when I watch a movie that is one feeling I never want to have.
Second rule for me is I never want to see the strings. If I see the strings of the puppeteer, the game is over. I frigging see the strings everywhere. I give one example - the filmmakers feel a need to humanize Chang Chen's villain that they write the Macau scene. IMHO the entire Macau episode is one long and useless scene. If you take that redundant scene out, I have a feeling the film would have tightened up more.
There is nothing new here. The action scenes, the story idea, I have seen before in better lesser films. Nothing here coalesce in any meaningful way. The plot is unnecessarily convoluted when it should be immediate. There are just too many players here. Other than the nationalities I mentioned, there are Turkish, Sikh, Caucasians and they even parachute in Americans and Anglo Saxsons, verbally. Every character acts and looks like they are double-crossers or triple-crossers. I couldn't care for anyone and I didn't mind if all the idiots die. After awhile we already knew who Helios is way before the fella was revealed. Damn hate seeing the puppeteers' strings, heck I think they are more like ropes than strings.
As if one movie is not enough, the movie ends on a contrived cliffhanger note that screams in your face that this is just the first act of a longer film. We would be dumbasses if we even buy tickets for the sequel. The only consolation is that we had free passes to the movie. God forbid I pay for this rubbish. But if the filmmakers make the sequel to Cold War, that would be a different story.
