Reviews by Hyomil

So poorly written and paced the actors can't save it. An empty and confusing mess. Very disappointed. Here's the moviexclusive review:

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Starts out well and has the makings of a good romantic comedy, but it just awkwardly keeps adding on parts and fumbles its way to an ending. There's a flashback montage near the end that's supposed to bring things into focus but instead makes you realize how earlier parts were more intriguing and any expectations they set up really haven't amounted to much. Bad luck for the movie that there's also an awkward reconciliation in the same scene over some matter that was glanced over that feels equally forced and comes to mind as representative of the movie as a whole. In other words, sincere parts pasted together in an insincere way.

Subtle cinematography and acting throws out a number of interesting things, but they keep extending/repeating the surveillance scenes and don't capitalize on what works. Some ominous hints of karma like its a boogeyman but little exploration of how characters' own motivations may bring about what's attributed to an external force. Movie's a bit like an unsuccessful surveillance job--some interesting things popped up while you were watching, but you didn't really get what you were looking for. DVD extras are some of the most pathetic I've seen and don't add any insight; I doubt anyone asking questions had even seen the movie.

As so often with Wong Jing, sloppy and too many unfunny comic interludes that kill the feeling of momentum or cohesion. Works in parts but ultimately a cut and paste job that gets by on the actors' performances.

Decent movie but fairly dry and slow-paced. Kyoko Fukada can generally liven things up, but she isn't given much opportunity to shine, with only a few token lighthearted touches thrown in. Nor do they take an intense approach that would've generated more suspense. Would've helped if they'd cut it down from 1hr. 54mins. or added more depth to the characterizations. They hit a few beats but it fails to really build momentum and capitalize on the parts that work, so it ends up feeling rather pasted together.

If they'd stuck with what worked, this would have been a gripping, moving series from beginning to end. I kept marveling at how immediately and consistently disarming Kyoko Fukada is, managing to play a character who's overtly stupid, whiny, and childish yet still comes across as guileless, humble, understanding, helpful, selfless, likable, and funny. I can remember only one moment where I saw something resembling a smirk--when her fiance seemed like he might be mimicking her in the hotel:



Impossible not to like her, and its rather terrifying how good she is at keeping it that way, with no sense of what might lie underneath should she ever slip. Unfortunately, they tried to mix in parodies of police dramas with a lot of characters who are nothing but comedy props and it falls painfully flat again and again until you're groaning as soon as you see them start up, yet they do little to rework these parts by the end of the series. Maybe they felt they had no choice because the series is based on a manga. If you can bear with it through these parts, the rest is great. For more of Kyoko Fukada, I recommend Yama Onna Kabe Onna (2007).

English fansubs available for this series that are better than those that come with the Ember Power DVDs. They're also based on those DVDs, so you don't have to retime them.

Opening Sequence

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Got the Tai Seng release (which has Chinese menus but English subtitles) and watched the first episode and plan to watch the rest. English subtitles are good (not machine-translated), with only a few whose meanings are unclear. Reminds me of D.I.E. (2008), also with Sonija Kwok, with its unpredictable jumps between serious drama and lighthearted fun, though here she has the stiffer role of being the boss.

I looked for a 720p version but found none, and there was a post that said that 720p HK series didn’t start appearing until 2007 (with Drive of Life being the first). Couldn’t find a legitimate widescreen version either.

Has a similar feel to director Dante Lam's previous movie "Fire of Conscience." Acting is good, and the film has its moments but ultimately just feels like a bunch of scenes pasted together. Good for an action fix but not much more. Starts off seeming like a fresh perspective on stool pigeons and how coolly and methodically they're exploited by the police but degenerates into forced drama and brutality. Characters seldom seem more than caricatures.

Lunmei Kwai unfortunately doesn't have many action scenes. Perhaps she'll be used more in the upcoming Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.

(Blu-ray extras are just the usual fluff pieces where interviewer questions are cut out because it would be readily apparent that none of them are interesting, show any depth of knowledge, or are follow-up questions that challenge or joke about any of the fluff answers. It seems the crew are just told "Come up with something interesting to say about the movie, but make sure it doesn't reflect badly on anyone. Ramble on for about 10 minutes or so in a tone that makes even the most trivial and superficial statements sound like they're the product of careful and deep thought or that you're so impressed by other members of the crew that you're at a loss for words, and then we'll cut back and forth between different interviews frequently at random points so that viewers don't catch on to this and buy into the illusion that its a carefully crafted and incisive documentary." One of the extras is just a collection of footage from a cameraman who walks around filming stuff on set with no one paying attention to him and with little editing and no commentary whatsoever or even subtitles of what's being said by the crew.)

Fansubs translated from the Thai DVD by AdisornP are available from Subscene (from a 720p version, but that was an upscale). Some errors but not too many glaring ones, although it can be hard to tell what might've gotten lost in the translation. I just watched this and there's no Girls with Guns content until an hour and fifteen minutes in, and very little even then, so don't bother seeing it for that.

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The actors are good and I wanted to like this movie more than I did. Unfortunately, it has a very leisurely pace, little action of any kind, and little payoff for sitting through the dry spells. The saving grace is the humor--there a few very funny moments. I was expecting it from the trailer, but I wasn't expecting it to be dragged out for far more than it was worth, to the point of foot-shuffling discomfort, and to have worn out its welcome well before the end. The film badly needed tighter editing and more substantive content to fill out the running time. "I get it. That was funny. Can we move on to the next scene now? I've finished laughing; I don't need any more time to catch my breath." It is unbelievable how much time Saturday Killer devotes to the main character's various erectile dysfunctions; it really starts to feel like the main plot of the film at times. Will the main character ever succeed in getting his man-parts to work right? I'm on the edge of my seat. Someone took what should have been comic relief, plot device, and a metaphor for character development and decided it should be an end in itself. There's even a scene of someone urinating on the main character's face, which seems appropriate to describe the level of care and consideration that went into this storyline and, to some extent, the attitude of the film in general.

Ultimately, it just seems like a silly and empty exercise with no real exploration of character backgrounds or motivations, rather like a documentary revisiting moments from other movies in the genre with a laid back, rambling host with no real point of view who just keeps bringing up random stuff and not knowing where to go with it. Apparently this was intended as a parody, which is always a good catch-all for criticism, but if you haven't seen the specific things its parodying, you can't help but take many things seriously, and those parts will fall flat or leave a negative impression. Also, movies that are wholly parody and don't attempt to also be movies unto themselves are seldom worth spending an hour and a half on. Hopefully, the other 2 parts of the trilogy, Sunday Killer and Friday Killer (intended to be more serious), will be better.

Best word to describe this movie is "thin." The trailer gives the setup, but there's no follow through. Nothing is particularly believable or smart and there's little plot, dialog, or character interaction. Questions that should be asked aren't. Questions that no one really cares about are lingered on too long. The main character dominates the screen time and spends most of the movie alone and silent, so that conveniently leaves out the need to flesh out his theories and what he's thinking and we're just left to guess--no doubt the director thinks this is a clever style because it puts us in the same mindset as the main character. Actually, it just put me in the mindset of wanting to go to sleep.

The main character is a stony hired killer, so there's no one to root for, and it doesn't take too many lingering shots of him furrowing his brow to convey the wheels of his genius brain are turning while conducting surveillance of mundane events until you stop caring. Slogging through to the ending adds little, so you might as well just move on when the boredom gets intense. There's really not any "twist" at the end, as some say; what you expect to happen pretty much does.

Ironically, one of the main messages of Accident seems be that one should be wary of the human tendency to read too much into things, yet that's just what the reviewers who trumpet this movie as one of the best of the year have done, when this actually yet another triumph of atmosphere over substance that bypasses viewers' ability to think critically by implying things that never materialize and various other manipulations that leave you feeling used at the end. Overheard (2009), also with Koo, springs to mind as an example of a better movie of this stripe.