San ren xing

A great and thrilling concept stuffed into a melodramatic package.

Johnnie To is a name that most people associate with great films, but I on the other hand can't quite 100% agree. I always find his films, while action packed, often poorly written and filled with melodrama. This film is no different.

A big gripe was the writing. There's this doctor character thrown whose storyline is quite prominent. It doesn't have much of a payoff, so it's strong presence seems odd. Then there's the silly moments. A paralyzed man falling down the stairs and being able to walk, a gun jamming not once but numerous times over and over just for the sake of drama. Even someone cocking a gun in the middle of emptying a clip. C'mon Johnnie, you make films with guns all the time! Learn how they work!

The main action set piece is a disappointment too. It's a long, one take (aided by trick editing and CGI) pf a gunfight. In theory it sounds amazing, and it does touch on greatness, but there's two big flaws in it. The musical choice is terrible. An unfitting song with unfitting lyrics. The 2nd flaw is that everyone looks like they're doing that "pretend slowmo run" that people do when they're fooling around. It's terribly laughable and sucks the drama out of the scene completely.

I wanted to be thrilled by this, but by the lackluster ending I was left disappointed.

If there is a director that knows their way around action, is Johnnie To. He would be great to do an action movie out of a video game, with his choreography and dazzling camera work, his bravura shots and his willingness to challenge the viewer's expectations.

However, "Three" is not much more than a curio, a minor work that could have been much more and ends just being an interesting one hour and a half, with a plot flimsy as they come, and so much silliness the viewer will be forgiven if they start giggling in the action sequences.

The story is simple: a thief has been shot and the police takes him to the hospital to take the bullet from his head. It seems one of the police people shot him but they don't want that to come to light. The thief himself doesn't seem to want to be operated on, and believes his friends will save him. At the same time, the doctor that is taking care of him has a little bit of god-complex.

The movie centers on the thief, the police boss and the doctor, all played quite straight by known actors from Hong Kong, and how their relationship evolves while at the hospital. However the plot doesn't offer much and from the very beginning we have the feeling that a showdown will come sooner or later. The characters are paper thin and as simplistic as they come, and the acting, even if acceptable, doesn't elevate the product.

But what makes this movie something more than just your run-of-the- mill action movie is To. From the moment the thief gets to the hospital, the viewer will notice director To is up to his camera tricks. Long shots, lots of actors, amazing camera work, ridiculous slow-motion moments... To directs the movie as if it was the deepest and most amazing action movie ever and it elevates the movie up a couple of levels. It is just amazing. However, it is so flashy that sometimes falls into the silly and it seems more a class in directing action scenes than a proper movie (some of the excuses for an action moment are as lazy as they come, but To won't let anything pass by if it lets him put the camera at a weird angle).

Acceptable, with great action camera work, but with the same complexity as an empty canvas.

Surgeon Wei Zhao hasn't lost her patient, but the surgery has left him paralyzed. She tells him that recovery often takes more time, but he spits at her. Privately she feels it's all on her. Meanwhile, policeman Louis Koo brings in Wallace Chung, a robber who has a bullet lodged in his brain. Occasionally he has seizures. Occasionally, his nose bleeds. Koo has the hospital floor filled with undercover police officers, guarding against an attempt to break Chung out. But Chung keeps grinning. Who has control?

Johnny To's movie is about control, and people with the illusion that they have it. Like others of his movies, he deliberately chooses a confined space, a limited color palette, and large swaths of black to vary the size of his frame, while we wait for the chaos of a desperate fight to break out. Unlike others of his movies, his themes don't creep up on the audience gradually, they are revealed early, and the answers likewise.

A very interesting concept of setting a cop thriller entirely within a hospital, with some very well choreographed sequences (except I don't think people fly up in the air when they get shot). Therefore it's a shame the characters are poorly written and acted.

Of the three main characters, the cop and the doctor look permanently pissed off and are one-dimensional. The doctor is obviously psychologically unstable and unfit to practice, so I don't know why she's working in a hospital. The criminal is actually the most interesting and likeable. The minor supporting characters are actually better done.

Watching the new Johnny To films has become a duty. It looks like WHERE A GOOD MAN GOES and MAD DETECTIVE are going to be the best we get out of him but his new film THREE intrigues.

For a movie enthusiast it can be seen as the heir to the great Hong Kong kung fu films. It's a cop movie set in the emergency ward of Victoria Hospital. After some gory close ups of drilling into skulls in the operating room, we move into the plot with shot criminal Wallace Chung being wheeled into Emergency handcuffed to his gurney.

Dr. Vickie Wei Zhao (SHAOLIN SOCCER, RED CLIFF)is already under fire from a patient after her operation left him paralyzed. He spits on her and calls her "Rubbish Doctor" and her success rate doesn't improve. She's at odds with To regular, stony faced police officer Louis Koo, who she feels is treating Chung inhumanely. Doctor and cop get into conflict over Chung's demand for the 'phone call that he is entitled too, with the patient quoting The Hippocratic Oath to her (in English) - good scene.

While this is happening, the crazy in the next bed gets away from his restraints complaining about his treatment, cop Lam Suet is trying to find the conspirator-suit who whistles classical music and the key to his hand cuffs is missing.

Finale is a large scale shoot out in slow motion - impressive moment when the moving camera comes through the ward doors and the action switches to normal speed and the sound of gunfire and panic.

The ending strips away most of the undertaking's dignity but by then there's been enough kinetic action to more than satisfy the target audience.