His turn as the mad detective is one of his best performance recent years (he acted in a bunch of silly slapstick e.g. Himalaya Star （喜马拉亚星）, Shopaholic etc... - which is quite a norm for good actors in HK, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Chow Yun Fatt also has their fair share of these, if you scrutinize their career choices). I really got the chill in some scenes just looking at his facial expression.
As usual with the Johnnie To and Wai Kar Fai flick, be prepared for the complex plot and twist but getting past that, it's an enjoyable movie.
Lots of notable extras if you are familiar with them. It's good to see Lau Gem Ling and Flora Chan here too.
And if you are familiar with Lau's work, I feel that this reminded me of another work of his, Victim or Muk Lou Hung Gong 目露凶光 (his 1st movie with his real-life spouse, Amy Kwok) though Mad Detective is more layered and twisty.
His other memorable role is the HK modern classic tearjerker with Anita Yuen, C'est La Vie, Mon Cheri 新不了情. This movie is blessed with great acting with great cast such as Chun Pui 秦沛, Ng Kar Lai 吴家丽, Fung Bou Bou 冯宝宝, Carina Lau 刘嘉玲 etc and not forgetting the hauntingly beautiful theme song by Wan Fang 万芳 (which by the way was sang to death in tonnes of reality singing competition, thanks to 1st One Million Star from Taiwan).
I also like his movie with Cecilia Cheung 张柏芝, Lost in Time or Mong bat liu It's the first time I think Cecilia can act and the little kid is sooooo adorable. Yeah....another tear-jerker as well. Lau's role here was easy for him but it's fresh to see him in good role after lots of forgettable slapsticks during those years. 
P/S : Stranded in Tawau, have to make do with the WLT and thank god they show Mad Detective, which I had been longing to watch.
I do admit there are alot of good HK actors but sadly not much good script. A lot of movies plus those TVB series shamelessly use those angmoh ideas.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I do miss the HK movie glory days back in the 80s. :-)
agree!!! another prob is always "follow wind". never dare to do something different. tat's y it's all "mou gan dou" and triad movies lately, oh not forgetting extravaganza period epic too....
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