Sam cha hau

Divergence is the latest crime thriller to come out of Hong Kong's film industry, and all films of this genre will nonetheless be compared with the grand-daddy of them all - Infernal Affairs, which set a very high bar. Given that this film is produced by the same team, you'd expect the same high standards. While production values are similar, I'd leave it to you to decide the end verdict.

If you're expecting a strong cops and robbers storyline, then you might be disappointed. This film is heavy on relationships between the characters, their degrees of separation, and their duality. Which may not be a bad thing, but I find the dwelling on sappy moments and flashbacks a bit overboard, and at times, the audience was laughing at the improbability of these moments.

This movie unites Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng together for the big screen after the comic fantasy movie Stormriders. Kwok plays a cop who lost his girlfriend under mysterious circumstances 10 years ago, and in the first 10 minutes, lost a key witness to a sniper, played by Daniel Wu, who always seem to be playing nothing but baddie roles these days. However, Wu's sniper character knows that in his career, he is both the hunter, and the hunted, and at times want to prove to Kwok that he makes a better cop. Ekin Cheng's a lawyer who defends the innocent, or so it seems. While he's aware that his clients are sometimes guilty, is he idly standing by? Thrown into the mix are characters like Cheng's wife, played by the lovely Angelica Lee, who bears a strong resemblance to Kwok's girl, and thus making him a stalker of sorts, Eric Tsang as an underused pathologist, Ning Jing (the only movie I saw her in was the remake of Shanghai Grand) as a bald assassin agent, and Lo Kar Leung as Cheng's client who has shady underworld links and a pop star son, who gets kidnapped.

At times you might feel that the movie plods along, while you might already have been able to unravel the mystery mid-way. This could be due to the sappy moments I mentioned earlier, and taking centerstage is how Kwok's cop character refuses to give up looking for his girlfriend. You can understand how the character feels if you're in the same shoes - loving someone so deeply, and yet having zero closure. And when you think you see her again - is it really her, or had amnesia played a part, or has she deliberately forgotten the past? While the audience found the scene of revelation and Kwok's reaction to it funny, I felt the opposite - sometimes when the truth is revealed and you can't handle it, you shut down. Really. Trust me, I know. So if I were in his shoes, that'll probably be what will happen to me too.

However, this film does have moments which can iconify it (sort of like the Tony-Leung-pointing-a-gun-at-Andy-Lau's-head moment in Infernal Affairs). The "long run to the fish market" scene is tense, and so is the finale where 3 characters have a standoff, which actually yanked the rug off my feet.

I felt that if this film focused tightly on the plot, and lose some peripheral characters, it might just live up to its potential, and I don't think we'll see any sequels to this one.

Not the slam bang police action of Infernal Affairs (the original, not the ripoff), but there is enough action to make it worth your while.

It focuses more on the characters and their relationships: the cop, Suen Siu Yan (Aaron Kwok, the hit man, Koo (Daniel Wu), and the lawyer, To Hou Sun (Ekin Cheng).

Suen has been looking for his girlfriend Amy for 10 years. To's wife Su Fong (Angelica Lee) looks like her and actually plays two parts, one in flashback. He acts like a stalker as he follows her everywhere.

Eric Tsang from Internal Affairs is here, but he is a cop in Missing Persons, not a mobster.

Kwok and Wu are great, and the action is good at times, but there just doesn't seem to be something that brings it all together.

After Aaron Kwok won the Golden Horse, the Taiwan's equivalent of the Oscar, for best actor, I got interested in this movie to try to figure out how this pop star who was considered a long shot by many people won the prestigious award. The first impression I got after I finished was, and I remembered clearly, sitting at my sofa, staring at the blank TV screen for a couple of minutes, and saying, "What just happened?" No, I was not blown by it. The opposite occurred. I was confused.

The movie was a typical Hong Kong movie, with the usual grittiness and stylishness. It had its moments, but sometimes, for some strange reason, it felt slow. Maybe there was not the ridiculous amount of gunfire, car chases and explosions that we viewers of Hong Kong thriller films are most familiar with and what I am most fond with. Maybe the love line story was so unnecessary that it dragged the movie down. Whatever the case, the mysteries and the search for the truth got my attention and got me excited...till I reached the twist. The twist right before the ending was a little surprising, but in retrospect it became obvious because too many clues were given that even a 2 year old could guess it (not recommended for 2 year olds- they are too young to be subjected to bad films). Still, it could be forgiven because an effort was made and it was a decent twist, no matter how predictable it was. However, here was what killed the moving- the ending. Nothing good could be said about it. It felt like they were trying to make this movie sophisticated by leaving so many questions unanswered. The problem was, those questions were not rhetorical or philosophical questions that might make one reexamines one's life. Instead, those questions were questions about the plot; the ending made the writers look stupid and left the movie feeling unfinished. Not enough clues were given in the film to help the viewers to try to answer the questions that were left. I tried to answer those questions, but after a few moments of pondering, I gave up and started swearing at the writers for wasting almost 2 hours of my time and the favors I have to pull to borrow this movie. There was no way to answer them and it was dumb to even try.

I could not say nothing good came out of this film. I finally understood the formula for the voting panel at the Golden Horse Awards. 2 words: star power. The guy was once part of the legendary 4 kings of Hong Kong pop music and even though the status had became history and he was struggling for the past few years, he still have draw power. Letting him win would be a feel good story and let people talk about it for days; it could boost popularity for the show, which saw its ratings down from last year and had been on the down side in recent years. This was not to put down Mr. Kwaok. He did a good job and it might arguably be the best performance of his career. However, compared to the other nominees, his performance still felt weak. I guess everything was for the ratings.

My only advice: do not watch it just because Aaron Kwok won the Golden Horse for it. It is a meaningless piece of work and your time would be better devoted elsewhere.

I give it 6/10, because an effort was made and only the ending sucked.

The movie Divergence is about three men who have their lives brought together by their jobs. The movie makes it seem like there will be some very profound and mind-blowing brilliant connection among these characters when there really isn't. However the movie does create an interesting dynamic with the jobs of the three main characters, and how each character takes on the job of another (I won't spoil it for you). The characters have a good amount of development and its likely you'll make some sort of connection with Aaron Kwok's character at the very least. The action scenes are good, definitely better than the usual fare from HK recently. The cinematography of the movie really impressed me, if you pay attention there are a lot of subtle things that are done to foreshadow things in the movie. The director really knew what he was doing. The rating that the movie has right now (floating around 5.5) is definitely too low, this is an entertaining movie and impressed me since I have been a little indifferent to HK cinema recently. At the very least the this movie shows their is still room for the thriller movies in HK, despite the recent barrage of brainless comedy flicks.

"Divergence" ("Saam Cha Hau") is a fairly average action thriller from director Benny Chan. So don't expect any major revelations or eye-poppers here.

That being said, then "Divergence" is still a good movie, because it takes a well-used formula and manages to get something good out of it, and the movie is entertaining.

The story is about policeman Suen (played by Aaron Kwok), assassin Koo (played by Daniel Wu) and lawyer To (played by Ekin Cheng) whose paths are intertwined and get trapped in a race against time.

Initially, there is nothing new to the story, but Benny Chan still manages to tell a story that is entertaining and thrilling. And there are some pretty good visuals throughout the movie.

As for the acting, well Daniel Wu really carried the movie here, and far outshone both Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng. As for Aaron Kwok, then he really didn't shine through in this movie and sort of just seemed to be running on autopilot. And Ekin Cheng wasn't really given enough time on the screen to fully make an impact.

"Divergence" is good entertainment if you enjoy action thrillers, just don't expect to get dazzled.