Bloody Friday
A young woman is frantically running down a dark
deserted alleyway (aren’t they always?) – a look of terror distorting her
lovely features. In the distance the sound of a motorcycle revving its
engine can be heard. Soon it gets closer and closer as it swoops down on
the helpless victim. She dodges, she twists, she screams – but nothing
can stop her inevitable demise at the hands of this serial killer.
For weeks this killer has been preying on hookers
– but only on Friday nights (must be a bad night for TV?). Simon Yam is
put on the case, but nothing seems to work out right. A trap is set, the
bait is placed and the killer goes for it. Unfortunately, the HK police
have not been practicing their shooting lately and somehow over a hundred
of them manage to miss the killer on the motorcycle at close range. Pretty
silly – but if they hadn't it would have been a very short movie! There
are some really terrific mototcycle stunts and riding as the killer seems
able to go up or through just about anything.
Eventually, the killer begins playing games with
Yam and sends him four pictures. Yam is told that in those pictures are
clues of the next targets. If Yam is unable to stop the killings then the
fifth target will be a young hooker, Loletta Lee, and after that Yam’s
wife (Ada Choi) and his daughter.
One by one Yam fails to stop the killings and
Loletta is next in line. There is some tension and suspense created in
some of the scenes – but it suffers from that serial killer movie syndrome
in which they always seem to know where the victim is going to be or can
seem to get in any place without being seen. This tends to annoy me - I
would love to see some film where the killer tries to get into the detective's
house to leave a threatening message – and just can’t get in!
Both Simon and Loletta do nice jobs here – Simon
as an obsessed driven cop and Loletta as a flirtatious sexy vixen. Ada
in a much smaller role is fine as well.
The ending somewhat destroys any believability
factor that may have emerged when the killer’s identity is finally revealed.
It’s also a fairly downbeat finish in true HK style, but for the most part
this film will hold your attention.