San ren xing

Do you like your criminals intelligent? With a penchant for quoting Bertrand Russell and Hippocrates, a well-dressed jewelry thief is shot in the head and taken to hospital where he toys with a surgeon's feelings and plays with a cop's heart in this intricate thriller directed by filmmaker Johnnie To.

Don't be put off by the title. This thriller is strictly drama and exposition heavy. The "Three" in this case is the interplay between the surgeon, cop, and criminal, taking risks to get what they want out of themselves as well as life.

Even though it starts out tame and procedural, this film gives us an insight into each person's motivations and interactions on doing the "right thing." By the film's end you're left with some semblance of hope and humanity until the credits roll. Despite some tired clichés, you're also given another sub-set of three patients (which includes the criminal himself) with various problems that seek resolution. Some of it is funny, some a bit poignant, and even a climatic moment that will undoubtedly take your breath away when it comes to a fight inside the hospital itself by the criminal's henchmen.

The logic of plot setting is too bad. Every character seems to explain clearly, but in fact it is a model play. For example: the bandits quote the classics in a large section, and the people who laugh at nothing assume who is drunk to come up with it. The whole plot is not clear, and the operation lens is a waste of Cass. The final slow-motion gun battle and the soundtrack destroyed the harsh feeling of the climax of the bandit film.

Cornered gang leader Shun (Wallace Chung) manages to get himself shot by the police so he can bide his time in a hospital until his cohorts are able to rescue him. Dr. Tong Qian (Zhao Wei) tries to convince him to have the bullet in his head removed. Chief Inspector Ken Chan (Louis Koo) tries to get information from him about his gang members, hoping to capture all of them.

Being squeamish about violence, I try to avoid movies like this; I just watched this for Wallace. But I found the interplay among the three protagonists interesting enough to hang on. It helped that the movie is well directed and acted.

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.