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5 Hong Kong cop movies to watch

INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002)

Directors: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a police officer who goes deep undercover in a triad and Andy Lau is a gang member who infiltrates the Hong Kong police force. Their sense of morality and loyalty are thoroughly shaken even as they seem forever stuck in their shadow identities.

Many observers call this critically acclaimed and commercial hit the game-changer for Hong Kong cinema, propelling the undercover cop movie trend back into the limelight and even giving the film industry a major boost on the global map.

Hollywood director Martin Scorsese liked the story so much he remade the film - and got an Oscar for Best Director for it.

PTU (2003)

Director: Johnnie To

Centred on a group of patrolling police officers (including Simon Yam) who try to help a colleague retrieve his missing gun, the story examines the tensions not just between cops and criminals, but also within the police force itself. The film was also noted for its visually stylish film noir style.

Mr David Lee, vice-chairman of the SIngapore Film Society, says: "Johnnie To transformed the streets of Hong Kong into a film noir set in this beautiful noirish drama.

This film was most underrated and has been shut out of major awards, but its audacity and style makes it one of my all-time favourite police dramas."

POLICE STORY (1985)

Director: Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan, who plays a sergeant in the film, said in his 1999 autobiography, I Am Jackie Chan, that he considers this his best action movie, and many film fans agree.

Filled with numerous crazy stunts, including one in a shopping mall that caused Chan to suffer second-degree burns and dislocate his pelvis after he slid down a hot metal pole, the movie was a huge hit at the box office and spawned five follow-ups, including last year's reboot Police Story 2013.

Home-grown director Kelvin Tong says: "This Jackie Chan action flick sticks to the basic good-versus-evil format but his visual spectacles make this cop movie superlative. Chan hanging on to a runaway double-decker bus and sliding down strings of lights in the finale rank as classic scenes in Hong Kong action cinema."

A BETTER TOMORROW (1986)

Director: John Woo

In this hip and violent cult classic, Woo looks at the relationship between two brothers: One who is a police academy graduate (Leslie Cheung) and the other a major gang member (Ti Lung), who works closely with a criminal played by Chow Yun Fat. Woo made a sequel a year later, while director Tsui Hark made a prequel in 1989.

Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino said in an interview that he was greatly influenced by A Better Tomorrow and its follow-up, even admitting to lifting the skinny tie and black suit look from A Better Tomorrow II for his Reservoir Dogs (1992).

After the film's release, many young men in Hong Kong reportedly also started wearing trench coats in imitation of Chow Yun Fat's gang character Mark. The colloquial Cantonese term for trench coat became "Mark gor lau", or "Brother Mark's coat".

HARD BOILED (1992)

Director: John Woo

This was Woo's last Hong Kong film before he started making movies for Hollywood, and the story tells of an inspector (Chow Yun Fat) who works with an undercover cop (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) to take down a major triad leader (Anthony Wong). Many critics say that some of the action sequences here are among the director's best, and the film, like A Better Tomorrow, has been hailed as a classic.

Local film-maker Tong says: "The body count, in classic Woo fashion, rockets sky high. The gun play is spectacular but most memorable is Woo's habit of giving his characters small but defining habits - Chow's cop Tequila played the clarinet while Tony Leung Chiu Wai's undercover cop folds origami cranes. Kitschy, maybe. Unforgettable, absolutely."

What's new

THAT DEMON WITHIN

Director: Dante Lam

Opens: May 18

What: Director Lam stepped away from his usual cop thrillers to film the acclaimed boxing drama Unbeatable last year, but he is back in form with this movie about a conflicted police officer (Daniel Wu) battling inner demons.

He sets out to exact his own brand of vigilante vengeance and goes after an elusive and arrogant villain (Nick Cheung), convinced that murdering him would be better for society.

OVERHEARD 3

Directors: Alan Mak and Felix Chong

Opens: Tentatively next month

What: Part of the popular Overheard movie series (2009, 2011) about the interception of communications, this latest crime flick from directors Alan Mak and Felix Chong reunites the starry trio of Louis Koo, Lau Ching Wan and Daniel Wu as a group of guys who set off a series of events after overhearing some vital government information.

This time, however, the movie takes the action back to the 1980s, when the characters rely on more primitive wire-tapping methods. A more prominent female figure is also said to be vital to the plot, whose character will be portrayed by China A-lister Zhou Xun.

TWO THUMBS UP

Director: Lau Ho Leung

Opens: Second half of the year

What: In this dark comedy set in the 1980s, a group of four baddies (Simon Yam, Patrick Tam, Christie Chen and Francis Ng) boldly impersonate Hong Kong cops, even turning a mini bus into a fake police van to hijack a vehicle transporting large amounts of cash. Actor Leo Ku plays a real cop who hopes to arrest these criminals.

Writer-director Law Ho Leung told reporters at a press conference at Hong Kong trade event Filmart last month: "This is going to be a rather bizarre type of cop movie.

By the end of it, the audience will see that the story is about people's sense of justice, so what uniform you're wearing won't be important, it's about how much goodness there is in your heart."

KUNGFU JUNGLE

Director: Teddy Chen

Opens: Second half of the year

What: Gongfu king Donnie Yen plays a martial arts expert who is imprisoned for murder. He strikes a deal with the Hong Kong police, agreeing to work with them and help them track down a crazed serial killer (Wang Baoqiang) if they reduce his jail sentence in return.

Director Chen told Life! at a sit-down interview last month that his film is going to be a Hong Kong cop movie with plenty of gongfu elements incorporated into it.

"It has the old-fashioned gongfu spirit, but all of that is thrown in the middle of a cop film-cum-mystery movie. It'll be interesting."

HELIOS

Directors: Sunny Luk and Longman Leung

Opens: End of the year

What: Helmed by the director duo behind last year's mega-hit police thriller Cold War, this star-studded vehicle features big names from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea and is one of the genre's mostanticipated films of the year.

The story follows evil terrorist Helios (Chang Chen), who plans to fashion weapons of mass destruction in collaboration with a Hong Kong terrorist group. Police inspectors Lee (Nick Cheung) and Fan (Shawn Yue), working with South Korean weapons experts (Choi Si Won and Ji Jin Hee), have to stop them.

This article was published on April 9 in The Straits Times.

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