Five years after Milkyway produced the exquisite
P.T.U. (Police Tactical Unit), they returned with five made for TV films
that follow very much in its footsteps both thematically and stylistically.
I am not entirely sure if the three main actors who are back from P.T.U.
play the same characters as their names are different but if not, they are
carbon copies. This is the first one and though it doesn't rise to P.T.U.
standards, it comes within shouting distance - or maybe shooting distance.
The thing about P.T.U. is that it was made on a very small budget - a minimalist
masterpiece - basically police patrolling the Kowloon streets in units of
four and getting in and out of trouble with on the edge build-up of suspense.
So these TV films were probably not shot with a much smaller budget - in
some ways this one was more ambitious.
Of course a lot has happened in Hong Kong in the past few years that have
put the police in a very negative light - so perhaps twelve years ago seeing
the cops use a little too much force against a triad creep - breaking a finger
- might have elicited no more than an ouch - now it is hard not to see it
through the prism of their treatment of protestors. Ironically, it is a Unit's
rough treatment of a suspect on the street - a few punches - that kickstarts
the film as a street video captured the incident and the Supervisors want
to find out who the cops were in the dark murky video and fire them. Kind
of hard to believe those same standards are being used now regarding police
brutality towards protestors. In fact, we know they are not.
So the three cops in the video are Sam (Simon
Yam), Dak (Lam King-kong) and Suen (Roderick Lam) with their forth member
Eight (Joseph Lee) not working that day. An investigation is launched by
Internal Affairs to identify the police and find the beaten man. Sam and
his unit are desperately searching for him as well to get him out of town
or shup him up by some means - which is left a bit open ended. The other
Tactical team led by May (Maggie Siu) are aware that Sam and his two men
are the culprits but there is of course The Code - the Blue Line - you don't
rat out a fellow cop who has had your back. And they pitch in as well to
look for the man Shing (Cheung Wing-cheung). In P.T.U. both Simon and Maggie
led units as well and worked together.
Eight is also having issues - he is a completely straight cop but has gotten
himself deep in debt which makes him vulnerable to being bribed. They want
to remove him from the force and transfer him to some other duty - and after
25 years he is on the verge of a breakdown - with a gun and big chip on his
shoulder. The last twenty minutes is a thing of beauty as overlapping threads
collide in the police station and director Law Wing-cheong plays it for all
its worth going back and forth between characters to wring as much suspense
as he can.
Johnny To produces this and Law had been immersed in Milkyway films in various
roles for years - and one thing he has down pat is movement. We saw this
in The Mission (Asst. Director) and Exiled (in which he was Executive Director)
and in P.T.U. The manner in which the trained professionals whether bodyguards
or police align themselves and move or stop in perfect synchronized trained
cohesion. And it always looks super cool. It is the quietness, the slow methodical
police work, the terse utilitarian dialogue, the loyalty between the men
and women in blue that pulls me in. Not a lot of gunplay or violence - just
men doing what they think needs doing and at times it isn't pretty.
In the film also is Lam Suet as a slightly crooked plainclothes cop - he
was in P.T.U. and loses his gun again here. I peeked ahead at the next four
films and was happy to see Simon Yam/Sam is in all of them as is Maggie/May
and Lam Suet (the hardest working man in HK) as well as Sgt, Tong. Good stuff
to look forward to.
