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Fulltime Killer
**1/2
Capsule-length
Cinema Review - July 23, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. Hong
Kong. 102 minutes. Directed by Jonny To, Ka-Fai Wai. Produced by Andy Lau,
Jonny To, Ka-Fai Wai. Written by Joey O'Bryan, Ka-Fai Wai; based on the novel
by Ho Cheung Ping. Starring Andy Lau, Takashi Sorimachi, Simon Yam, Kelly
Lin, Cherrie Ying, Suet Lam, Teddy Lin.
Takashi Sorimachi plays O, the best hitman in
Hong Kong, and Andy Lau is his rival, Tok. O is quiet, focused -- a man who
has stripped himself down to cold professionalism. Tok is a charming young
upstart -- a flashy, cocky, wisecracking little punk who spikes his hair,
grins real wide and shouts about the day he will steal big O's
title.
These two guys, and Kelly Lin, the girl in between,
are introduced in a first hour that gives us everything we want from a modern
Asian action film. The characters have cool and moody traits, there are movie
references thrown around all over the place, we get poignantly understated
romance, and the action scenes have killer angles, slow motion and lots of
stylish movements and gore splatters.
The movie should be building to a stunning conclusion,
but somehow it loses momentum. Theoretically, great stuff happens in the
last act -- the killers show each other down, get interrupted by the cops
in the process and cause an epic street battle, and there's a wonderfully
human what-if sequence where we learn about what happened to everyone…
maybe. It just doesn't play right; the fights near the end are at the same
pace as the others, when they should be at a higher speed, and there's an
embarrassing reliance on a supporting character who was a cop but turns into
an over-the-top chain-smoking jittery writer and ends up plain
annoying.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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