PTU

Johnny To returns to THE MISSION territory, where style is of utmost importance, and dialogue is for weak directors who can't tell a narrative film. Or at least that's one of many conclusions to be drawn from PTU, a film that has less to do with telling a story than it is to look, feel, and be cool. And yes, it is quite cool to behold.

Simon Yam leads the cast, once more proving that any movie starring Simon Yam, Anthony Wong, or Francis Ng can't be bad. PTU further proves this theory of mine.

The ending deserves mention, because it will most likely be pointed out to by many people. The ending will only seem "weak" if one takes the film seriously up to this point. This is not a movie, this is a study of movement, of telling a movie without actually bothering with all the things that encompass the making of a "movie". I.e. Nothing of real consequence will have happened by movie's end.

7 out of 10.

PTU is undoubtly one of To's best work to date, to me, it's as good as The Mission, with a more developed Johny To touch in it. and for me the best John To film has to be Running Out Of Time. i'd like to point out that PTU is a Johny To's "personal" work, meaning that it's solely produced and distributed by his own production company - MilkyWay Image, and there have only been 2 other movies that are considered Milkyway Image films, or Johny To's personal works, one is 1999's Running Out Of Time, and one is The Misson, he's stated that he'd only make one in about every 3 years(numerous times), in his career he's done a lot of movies, but they are mostly block busters. so if you are interested in other movies by him, just know that they are not really the kind of movies he want to make.

I'm convinced that much of film is reverberation from the phenomenon of noir. The key element of noir was a capricious fate that both played arbitrary havoc with lives and flavored the eye of the camera.

I am not thoroughly steeped in Hong Kong work, but there seem to be three main communities: the deeply cinematic experimentalists led by Kar-wai, the stylistic ballet of Woo and company and the neo-noirists. Unfortunately, these can superficially appear similar in many respects. But I think here we have a clear case of the third.

The game is dark. Everyone seems to think they are in charge, but no one is. Luck plays the key role and many coincidences appear. The camera eye is based on the long lens.

I'm beginning to appreciate cinematographers who exploit either the long or short lens. I think it is impossible to do noir with a short lens because it is so obvious that the eye is within the space of action. But few noir films go so far, so long as this one.

Forget the story, which is only to convey the accidents and lack of control (except for the central scene where one character tries to get another to rub a tattoo off his neck). And forget the characters; they are just tokens borrowed from other movies. Just revel in the philosophy here: why does a world exist where everything is a matter of chance, but you as the viewer always, always happen to be in the right place to see everything?

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

A police captain assigns his unit to help a colleague retrieve his gun, lost in an altercation with a street-gang, before a reporting deadline expires.

Just as much as the style and the look, it's the choreography and orchestration - and the way To shuffles the characters and objects about on his late-night chessboard; and the sound-scapes, in addition to the glorious night-lit streets and skyline which delight almost to the extent that the opening restaurant confrontational, ultimately tragic, musical chairs and climactic set-piece shoot-out serve as mere book-ends for what comes between. Or even, as brief irritants.

The characters don't particularly matter either - although there are some particularly wonderful-looking villains - because they're all just pawns for this visual, and aural feast.

You've seen plenty of tyre-squealer car-chases - maybe you've seen too many of them; To's come up with a new angle: the cars that glide at intervals through city streets, unobtrusively, apparently disinterestedly, and almost noiselessly - perhaps just to get you thinking "now I wonder what they're up to'? A crime film where all the cars keep within the speed limit? Shurely shome mishtake?

And then there's the kid on the bicycle: by the time of his third sighting you're wondering is he a midget gang member, or undercover cop - or afterhours drugs mule, even; and will it be his fate to be ripped apart with bullets, by all sides? How cruel could that be, for somebody so young? It's all about building tension, and keeping you on edge - or maybe filling in the spaces on that chessboard.

There are some great scenes and ideas, too - of course: as with that opening restaurant scene where various customers get re-assigned according to their place in the hierarchy, and phone messages that we only later become privy to, have fatal consequences. Then there's the tense confrontational scene in the video-game arcade, with the array of flashing video screens vieing for our attention with a synchronised symphony of unanswered cell-phones; and there's the men in cages, bent over almost triple.

Thematically, it reminds me of Kurosawa's 'Stray Dog' - and there may have been more than one scene of that classic referenced; visually; and to a certain extent narrative-wise, it reminded me of Scorsese's 'After Hours'. The boy on the bicycle reminded me of the boy in 'The Third Man', and also of 'M'. But these were only in passing: To obviously has his influences, but his style is all his own. And, sometimes, style matters.

The reason why I bought this was simple. Since I was on a DVD buying spree, and had picked up Johnnie To's The Mission (see review here), I thought I might as well pick up yet another of his movies which I have not watched, and so PTU presented itself because of the price, and the uber cool slip case cover.

PTU, or Police Tactical Unit, is quite unlike To's movies like the Election series, or The Mission. Here, we look at cops. Ordinary cops, who like everyone else, just want to go home safe and sound after their tour of duty. The movie started off with the sounds of the bustling streets of Hong Kong, before we find ourselves inside a police truck, with everyone in sombre mood during their trip to their patrol grounds of Tsim Sha Tsui, and listening quite ominously to an announcement over the radio regarding the death of a cop.

And so begins am eventful night, which is the time period where PTU takes place in. We follow quite a number of characters - Lam Suet as Lo from the Anti-Crime Division, whose firearm was lost during a scuffle with thugs, and forms the crux of the story in which the lives of everyone else in the movie revolves around, Maggie Siu as Kat, sergeant of her team of PTU cops, and Simon Yam as Mike, her counterpart leading the other team. It's a great character study piece of the three main characters, initially one who knows he's in lots of trouble for the loss, and desperately trying to recover it, in order to save face, and keep his reputation intact for an upcoming promotion, Kat's sense of doing what's right, following procedure, and Mike, who's willing to risk it all to help another of his own "for kay" (slang for cop).

Under To's direction, PTU is a brilliant visual piece. Creative use of light and shadow illuminates PTU, making it a visual spectacle, so much that you'll still enjoy the movie even if you turn off the volume. I particularly enjoyed the rather quiet moments which were plenty throughout the movie, rather than the usual wham-bang kind of action with guns ablazing. In fact, a shot is never even fired, until the end-all finale, combining all the separate threads of the story into one heck of a finale. What could probably raise eyebrows, are the unorthodox methods employed by the upholders of the law. You can't help but ponder over the methods, and how the lieutenants either turn a blind eye to, or are in full agreement with the provocative procedures meted out by their captain. Surely a talking point, if fire should be met with fire when dealing with scum.

There are many subtle touches in this compact tale of less than 90 minutes, with the ubiquitous mobile phone being so important as a plot element, and that strong sense of irony in the narrative. And again in To's cops and robbers / triad movies (though I may be wrong), it seemed that the cool soundtrack which is peppered throughout the film, seemed to stem from a single primary theme music, this time with some electric guitar riffs.

PTU doesn't get bogged down by wasting time explaining the many whys and how comes, and prefers to zap you right into the moment. It's the sense of contemplative urgency that makes it compelling to watch, and every turn brings something unexpected. The ending is particular interesting too, especially for those who have written statements in uniformed groups - you surely know what they're doing!