I have no idea why the rating here is so low for this movie. I don't speak Mandarin, and I watched this movie without English subtitles, but I understood everything that went on in this story. The visual story telling was that good. Every nuance, every detail were all intricately woven into actors movement and expressions. I should give credit to director Marco Mak for his superb directing.
Like the original Naked Killer was shockingly new for 1992, there was something shockingly contemporary about this movie as well. I saw the original Naked Killer in a movie theater in Hong Kong, and I came out of the theater with renewed expectation for all future movies that I saw. This movie had that effect on me as well.
One thing that can be said about movies produced or directed by Wong Jin is that it's very high quality, and some has expensive look and feel about them as well. This is true for this movie as well. And the women in this movie blows away any actresses in Hollywood produced movies. They are absolutely off the charts.
If there was one thing I didn't like about this movie was that all the actors looked so stiff. This was true especially for the younger actors. And like all the new China Hong Kong based movies, the entire color of the screen has a strange greenish hue to it. Also interior of the newer Hong Kong movies has this bland white walls everywhere. What happened to the beautiful and colorful Hong Kong of the '80s and the '90s ?
Anyways, this is an excellent action film, with many familiar faces, and welcome new faces. If the tone lightened up a bit, the future is bright for Wong Jin, and the future Hong Kong cinema.
