By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Longman Leung | Sunny Luk
Starring: Aaron Kwok | Alex Tsui Ka-kit | Andy Lau | Charlie Young | Chin Kar-lok | Tony Leung Ka-fai
Original language title: Hon Zin
Country: hong_kong
Year: 2013
Running time: 102
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2186715/combined
Kyle says: “THE GREAT WAR, DRUG WAR, COLD WAR, lots of movies about wars ancient, modern, political and imaginary: After dozens of these at the New York Asian Film Festival, it is a little confusing to remember which war is which. This one, a New York premiere, received Hong Kong Film Awards in April 2013 for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Tony Leung Ka-fai), Best New Performer (Alex Tsui), Best Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Design, and Best Original Music Score (Peter Kam).
“The narrative of COLD WAR is triggered by a seemingly routine police van patrol inspection being interrupted by an ear-splitting explosion outside a movie theatre. The police van with five officers in it subsequently goes missing and ransom demands, including a huge sum of money, are issued in a major hijacking and severe embarrassment to the police department. A complication is that one of the five is the son of MB Lee (Tony Leung Ka-fai), an old-school hardened tactician and soon-to-retire Deputy Commissioner of Police, who faces off against his much younger rival for the job, Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok, for many years a major star of HK cinema and Canto-pop music), who represents modern tactics of law enforcement, such as hostage negotiations. A further complication is that the hijackers are somehow familiar with police procedures and stay ahead of their foes at virtually every step of the story. The familiar HK game — of double agents, power plays, friendships tested, betrayals revealed, and gunfights everywhere — is afoot. ‘The biggest enemy is always on the inside.’ Nowhere on this planet can fans of police thrillers find consistently better work than in Hong Kong cinema, whether before or after ‘The Handover.’ The number of titles may be down considerably but the quality remains high consistently. 4 cats
“Seen Wednesday, July 10, 2013, New York Asian Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York.”