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.

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!

We meet the PTU on one of their worse nights. Chasing a suspect, a police sergeant loses his gun, and streets away, the son of a crime lord is stabbed to death in a small restaurant. We follow the PTU in their attempts to both find the policeman's weapon and prevent the fallout from the murder escalating. While it sounds an intriguing premise, PTU is not the pacey action-thriller you might expect, but is instead a slow, dark, and tense journey through the HK underworld.

Some scenes are brilliant, the use of harsh light and almost omnipresent shadow works well, effectively capturing the mood of the underworld. There's some real artistry here, and it's for that reason that the pacing frequently seems to be a little slow; the scenes look so good that the camera lingers on them for perhaps too long, causing pacing issues in some sections. However, it does work well in terms of suspense as the film builds towards its inevitably violent conclusion.

On a negative note, the music is terrible, and significantly dates a film that's only four years old. You have to wonder if they ran out of action movie ambiance sounds and just hit the classic cheese guitar button instead, but I guess that's just an Eastern film meets Western audience convention clash. It does however, in my opinion, completely undermine the final scene, which comes across as faintly ridiculous instead of as a dramatic release.

While it suffers from pacing and score issues, PTU's style and sense of tragic irony are enough to make it enjoyable if not quite essential viewing.

I saw a screening of PTU at UCLA tonight, with the director (and his translator) in attendance. I found the film to be a bit slow in spots, but I was willing to go along with the deliberate pace and slow burn of the film. I think in this country we're way too spoiled on visual chaos, with most studio films thrusting a car chase or a slapstick joke in our face every two minutes or so. It doesn't have to be that way. The film was shot beautifully and there is a quiet cool about the whole thing, very reminiscent of a Lee Marvin vibe as someone else here pointed out.

To did stay to answer questions after the movie, and although this did not alter my opinion of the film it did make me appreciate it even more. It was shot over the course of two years, while he would stop to make other commercial films; some actors gain or lose weight on screen! The budget only came out to $400k U.S. Several of the actors were actually crew people from his other films. One person asked him how he made his cinematography choices (i.e. the constant pools of light) and he laughed and said it was strictly budgetary; they couldn't afford to dress every set and they only had a few overhead lights, so voila! I think the limitations of what they had to work with only make the film stronger, much like Jaws is a better movie because the shark always broke down.

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.