Last Updated on October 25, 2020 by rob
A trio of police surveillance experts are ordered to bug a financial corporation suspected of insider trading. But personal problems lead the three men (Lau Ching-Wan, Daniel Wu and Louis Koo) to use the information they’ve obtained for their own financial benefit. So when events inevitably escalate out of control the three men find themselves hunted both by their own Internal Affairs department and hired killers working for the corporation’s ruthless head.
A cracking thriller this, emotionally involving performances from the ensemble cast, well plotted and paced with slick production values. Its morally ambiguous portrait of a world where if you have the money you can bribe just about anyone makes for a surprisingly snug fit with the Chinese state’s mandate that ‘Crime-must-not-be-shown-to-pay’, and a double plot twist climax is very satisfying. Two decent sequels followed in 2011 and 2014 but what’s interesting about the original is that with very little change (insider trading being a topic of concern most everywhere these days) this could quite easily be remade as a top of the line English language thriller.
