Divergence

Messy form over content police thriller (comedy?) has a cop, who is trying to come to terms with a long missing girlfriend, lose a witness in an organized crime case to an assassin. How the cop, the girlfriend and the assassins all interrelate is the film. I didn't know whether director Benny Chan was serious or not. Chan a good director (New Police Story) for the most part though occasionally he tries to do too much and the pieces don't come together (Rob B Hood). Here nothing seems to work and it all seems like a TV movie. The action isn't real, its done for artistic effect- the early strangulation where the victim claws the paint of the truck for example.Whats worse its laughable- the sequence where our hero finds the picture of his lost girl in his car and takes his foot off the brake while on a steep incline had me howling. Actually I just gave up on the film and jumped to the end. For me its one of the real disappointments I've seen recently, even if it does have a couple of good sequences-the plastic bag fight for example.

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.

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.

Just like its Hollywood contemporary, the fabled jewel of the east, also known as Hong Kong, shovels mouthfuls of filler in the general direction of its loyalist audiences. And similar to fluff done anywhere else, HK's variety also comes in the irritating form of polished, well-supervised products with at least acceptable technical merits and yet little beyond.

We recently had two mega-stars like Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung suffer through mediocre episode Jiang Hu, further thrashing the over-strained underworld genre, and here comes a Benny Chan flick to additionally burden the cops and crooks theme with uninvited baggage. At least in Chan's case the memory of capable actioner New Police Story still lingers, so we'll forgive him the helming of Divergence and its, in essence, vacuous content and pretty embarrassing conclusion. You'd be right in expecting more from Chan and his writer cohort Ivy Ho (who previously penned classic July Rhapsody), but nonetheless both failed to come up with any worthy goods this time around.

Presumably, Divergence gets its moniker from the three main personages operating inside the film's confused and unfulfilled promise. Suen (Aaron Kwok) is a sarcastic police officer working various, rather high-profile cases, at least one of which we witness going bad with the baddie under Suen's protection buying the farm in a gruesome fashion courtesy of the second main character, a hit-man known simply as Coke (Daniel Wu, who lost some weight and much appeal in a role that's beginning to smack of typecasting). Coke's success and Suen's misfortune set in motion a series of events that supposedly want to point out the ironic nature of life, the universe, and whatever the people counting box office returns happen to report.

The terminated criminal Suen was sheltering leaves a mean triad boss (Gallen Lo) feeling a whole lot better about things, but ultimately lands everyone in more trouble since the latter's enemies soon move to equalize by retaliating against his family. This sort of complication doesn't make Suen's life any easier as he tries to focus on capturing renegade Coke and his sultry female accomplice (done by mainlander Ning Jing).

Defending the underworld elements is attorney To Hou Sung, done by our favorite hunk Ekin Cheng, and here completing the triumvirate of male leads. Although silent and reserved, To quickly gets on Suen's nerves, and not just for his application of the law as an excuse for things one would sooner sweep under the floorboards. There's another element figuring in, further showing us how intertwined the trio is and why even minute occurrences can have repercussions much later down the line, hence Divergence. The factor in question is naturally a woman, and one who perhaps has been missing for the better part of a decade. It's the apple in the eye of cop Suen, an ex called Fong, portrayed with minimal gusto by gorgeous Angelica Lee. The disgruntled cop obsesses over his former lover and her vanishing all those years ago, even though we don't see much of their relationship other than contrived, hokey memory sequences and Kwok's miserable cry fest moments as fortified with extra-dumb instances of pseudo-animalistic howling. Was there really a need for such mundane clichés?

As if that wasn't enough, someone had the brilliant idea of encumbering Suen with several idiotic attempts at self destruction, resulting in him miraculously surviving and changing cars about as often as you do socks. Must have been quite the improvement in HK auto insurance since we last looked into the matter. Plus, the music people, bless their souls, thought it prudent to include one of the cheesiest collections of sentimental overtures one has heard in a long, blissfully quiet time. It's all enough to make you reach for the hurl bag.

And as we sit through the travails of Suen and his struggle with shadows of the past, it becomes apparent none of the main characters gets enough space to mature and grow, thus the various pieces never click. This trickles down to supporting figures like Ning Jing and too-prolific Eric Tsang as a jolly, noodle-slurping police medical examiner who never loses his appetite no matter how grisly the stiffs. Ha ha but not all that funny, thank you.

Not even the action itself lives up to whatever high expectations you may have of this project, if any. Fighting's pretty lame and basic, there's little gunplay, and the car chases seem to use the same beat up Mazdas you've seen in scores of older HK movies. But probably the biggest disappointment comes when the thing finishes, with characters coming out of nowhere to reach an easy, convenient and utterly ridiculous ending that somehow explains the various "enigmas" you were supposed to fuss over during the plot. But of course there was no fussing at all, seeing as how can anybody care about a story lacking in so many departments to begin with?

At least for Divergence Angelica Lee looks her best yet, so for all thus inclined mayhap there's some incentive to watch yet. On all other counts, Divergence misses the mark big time, leading down paths of inadequacy any film buff needn't even consider following.

Rating: **

Divergence tells the story of three men: A reckless hit-man simply named Coke (Daniel Wu), Suen Siu-yan a police officer whose fiancée has been missing for 10 years (Aaron Kwok), and Barrister To, a lawyer (Ekin Cheng) who works for a mobster. While conducting a routine witness transfer Suen Siu-yan feels the wrath of the hit-man Coke, after barely escaping with his life he starts further investigation into the case, the prize being Barrister To's gangster boss. At this point, three seemingly unrelated lives converge into a hailstorm of bullets and bloodshed.

If it sounds like typical Hong Kong action flick thats because it is. Everything about this film, at a cursory glance, is typical. The Acting is well-done, and the cinematography and Direction is also good, and the action is good too. But there is still something lacking in Divergence. I had to watch this film twice to figure out what was missing. On the second viewing I figured it out. This movie has no heart. It has everything that makes a good action film but in the end, you just don't care about the characters. The film makes all the stops and covers all the bases, and it should be a great film. But sadly, it's not, I was hoping for a great gunkata thriller but I was sadly disappointed.