Full-Time Killer
Reviewed by YTSL
For some people, a Milkyway Image film is not
really a Milkyway Image film unless it is a crime drama. However
worthwhile and/or entertaining they may be, comedies like “Needing You…”,
“Help!!!”, “Wu Yen” and “Love on a Diet”, a quiet romance like “Sealed
with a Kiss” and docu-dramas like “Spacked Out” and “Gimme, Gimme” aren’t
what many fans of this production house’s offerings truly look forward
to viewing. Consequently, although 2000 and 2001 have been years
in which Johnnie To and co. have achieved the most HKSAR box office success,
those who majorly admire those offerings which often starred Lau Ching
Wan -- and involved lots of exchanges of bullets -- have been waiting in
vain for some time now to be treated once again to the kind of testosterone-powered,
explosive action work that can be emotionally cathartic as well as dramatically
satisfying.
That whose (tentative) Chinese title translates
into English as “You and Me” is a movie about two hit-men (played by Andy
Lau and Takashi Sorimachi), the woman whom they get triangularly involved
with (who comes in the form of Kelly Lin), and the Interpol team (led by
an individual essayed by Simon Yam) whose pursuit of them spans several
Asian territories. Although its English title suggests otherwise,
there is more than one major claimant to the FULL-TIME KILLER crown in
this often tall tale; with Takashi Sorimachi’s intense O – short for Ono
– character being recognized, at the start of the film, by underworld figures
as the reigning king of assassins but his previously undisputed top position
within his field getting challenged by a flamboyantly reckless upstart
known only as Tok (and portrayed by Andy Lau). So intent is Tok to
not only topple but also meet and duel with O that the Chinese man was
willing to spend five years learning Japanese as well as effectively stalk
and corner the native Japanese speaker (whose chosen home base turned out
to be Hong Kong rather than the Land of the Rising Sun). O, on the
other hand, (initially) possessed no plans to get to know or near Tok,
or any other human being. Slowly but seeming inevitably though, the
two men’s paths cross and criss-cross. Furthermore, and along the
way, they find that they have more in common than just their chosen profession…
In his South China Morning Post review, Paul Fonoroff
has hailed FULL-TIME KILLER as being “in many ways…the best of…[Johnnie]
To's trademark “macho series””. Alternatively, not only did I not
love this Andy Lau vanity vehicle – it ought to be noted that, beyond this
movie’s web site being “powered by www.andylau.com, the Cantopop Sky King
was this visually stylish effort’s co-producer as well as lead (over-)actor
-- much more than the likes of “A Hero Never Dies”, “Expect the Unexpected”
and “The Mission” but I also happen to think that it is bereft of the darkness,
depth and dramatic heft that I found to be characteristic of the crime
dramas that the Milkyway Image folks used to put out in their pre 100 Years
of Film days. As a matter of fact, that which possesses the kind
of unseemly – and seemingly invariable shallow -- showiness that I happen
to dislike quite a bit looks to be: Less of a return to true nature
and form for co-directors cum co-producers Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai than
a commercialist harnessing of their considerable talents to an Andy Lau
bid to issue a flashy calling card, a la John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat by way
of “Hard Boiled”, to Hollywood.
The first signs of things not being as they ought
to be for me came by way of the FULL-TIME KILLER crew taking us rapidly
from Malaysia to Thailand – where the movie’s two main characters are shown
coolly carrying out deadly assignments -- and then to Japan, Singapore
and South Korea rather than just staying put in Hong Kong. Although
I don’t consider it a “must” for all Hong Kong movies to solely take place
in the HKSAR, “international” action productions are not – despite their
seemingly thinking otherwise -- the forte of the former British Crown Colony’s
film folk. For one thing, not enough time is spent in many of the
locations to make it feel like they are anything other than flatly uninteresting,
inter-changeable landscapes. For another, the international gallivanting
around that occurs places big linguistic demands on many of the actors
and actresses that they are not able to completely successfully fulfill.
With regards to the cast of FULL-TIME KILLER:
It undoubtedly helped Takashi Sorimachi’s cause that his O character was
pretty much the only one of the film’s key figures who got to speak the
actor’s mother tongue for the bulk of the movie. In contrast, Andy
Lau’s performance suffered considerably from his neither sounding particularly
comfortable nor cool when speaking English and Japanese (the two languages
he spoke much more than his native Cantonese, even when Tok was moving
around in Hong Kong). Also, while Simon Yam and Lam Suet’s English
delivery was passable, both of them did not possess the requisite “Singlish”
accents that I’d imagine that the real-life equivalents of their Singaporean
Interpol agent and sleazebag characters would possess. On a brighter
note, Kelly Lin’s command of Japanese as well as Mandarin allowed this
(re)viewer to find her convincing in her role as the Taiwanese woman named
Qin who regularly worked at a Japanese video store and earned extra money
cleaning the apartment of a mysterious Japanese man (whose life she found
herself getting increasingly curious about). Newcomer Cherrie Ying
deserves credit too for appearing at home in her role as the urbane Interpol
agent who was Simon Yam’s character’s right hand (wo)man.
A couple of easy ways for FULL-TIME KILLER
to have been a better movie than it is could have come by way of Andy Lau
being given more Cantonese dialogue and less screen time. The likelihood
is equally high that a Raymond Wong score would have added considerably
to this work’s quality. I also would have liked to have seen fewer
action scenes in which O or Tok’s targets and opponents were mere hapless
sitting ducks who were no match for the master killer(s). What I
personally missed most about this offering though were: Well-developed
characters – particular female ones – whose actions I could understand,
even if they weren’t ones with which I could fully sympathize or empathize;
and a realization that even when one likes to treat much of life as just
a game, the taking of human lives is something that ought not be enacted
all that lightly.
My rating for this film: 5.5
