Konterr Brilliant and touching

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

abstract_daddy PTU is a movie that looks very good, but completely lacks content. The entire movie takes place at night in a deserted Hong Kong. I say "deserted" because the streets are almost completely void of people. A car may occasionally pass by and a person or two might be seen in the background, but that's about it. The city is illuminated only by the harsh glow of street lights, with everything else shrouded in darkness. These qualities give the movie a slightly surreal feel, as if it took place in some kind of parallel universe of its own. I guess you could say that the movie is minimalistic, in many ways. There's not much music, dialogue is sparse and the camera doesn't do any neat tricks.The story: I have no idea. A police detective loses his sidearm, and the cops go looking for it. That's about all I can say, because I was unable to figure out what was going on. Lots of phone calls are made, meetings are arranged, and there's some kind of struggle between two gangs, and the police may or may not be somehow involved. There are some subplots (or something) that don't seem to be connected to anything. Maybe it's just my fault, but I didn't get it. The group of police officers that the movie follows seem to be corrupt. The detective who loses his weapon seems to be corrupt too. There's also another detective who is investigating something and is suspicious of the first detective for some reason, and she could be corrupt too, but who knows. She's the only interesting character in the movie.PTU has some bad problems with pacing. At 40 minutes into the movie, it felt like the story was still being set up and the characters introduced. There are many slow scenes where nothing really happens, such as the one where the cops climb a staircase for 5 minutes. Maybe the director tried to do things like Takeshi Kitano, but failed. The ending wraps things up but holds no meaning since I had no idea what was going on.At least it looks good. The only other Johnny To movie that I've seen is Fulltime Killer, and it didn't impress me either.

LLB212 This Hong Kong policier is a classic of its kind, a technically updated version of what America has not produced in fifty years. Lloyd Nolan or Lee Marvin could walk on at any time. Tough cops and tough criminals beat each other up without whining. It is ultra cool and thoroughly enjoyable without asking any earth-shattering questions. The only way to not like it is to not like the genre.

best_wells This movie shows the new style of HK action movie and it's directed by arguablely the best HK director today Johnny To, This movie reminds me of Johnny To's other great movie The Mission (1999) and both films have a similar style that is unique from others, definatelly worth watching.

philaychan I've watched this film 3 days ago in the Hong Kong International Film Festival. It's the opening film for the Festival.As usual, the feedback from audiences is great and there are applauses at the end of the movie. I haven't been impressed however; only think it's little amazing to see the policeman losing the gun becoming an accidental hero.The overall acting is what makes me give not high credit to the movie. Most of the side casts are acting strange or in a way over/under acted. The main casts though more professional are not giving unexpected performance. I'm not convinced the director has spent adequate time in directing the actors' performance. Probably he emphasizes on the story and other directing skills rather than acting performance to bring up the message.The music too is a little weird. Maybe the director has wanted to give a kind of absurb atmosphere but what comes out is something not matching with the visual images. I can't say which one is inferior. Might be the music is what actually the director has wanted but he hasn't been able to provide an atmosphere in the visual image matching the music and what he wanted to create.It's a little fun overall but absolutely not a great movie. The "dark" society the director wants to create and emphasize isn't impressive. I'd rather he goes more extreme or puts up some contrast for comparison.