Cold War (2000)

Killer Ka Chue (Simon Yam) has been knocking off gangsters across Asia for the past three years. The dead are all underlings of ruddy-faced Taiwanese head honcho Chue Chung. After a hit down in the Philippines, Ka Chue heads back to Hong Kong for get the details for his next mission. The target, according to the garbled computer message, is the head man himself. Aided by sidekick Maria (Christy Chung), Ka Chue heads to Korea to snuff him out.

Ka Chue has more reason to kill than just money - his wife was shot years earlier, presumably by a member of Chue Chung's gang. But as Ka Chue hits Korea to get his job done, an otherwise routine hit gets snarled up as he meets blurred gang allegiances, some sharp cops and the target's tough younger brother. Cold War's script also allows room for some Southeast Asian jungle warfare, a foreign-looking lesbian hitgal and a local Korean love interest.

With glimpses of speedy action and a fairly confident lead - Simon Yam - Cold War may have had some potential. And in some ways, the piecemeal plotting here may even offer mindless matinee viewing for Hong Kong's less picky moviegoers.

Not being picky is key - there are plenty of potholes strewn throughout. A sprinkling of quick-fix happenings propels the story, such as pursuers inexplicably turning up at the correct secret hideouts. The Korean cops here are so clever that they can look at a pool of blood at a crime scene and immediately know whose body it bled out of. The opening scene, and a later flashback to it, might as well be part of another film. Hong Kong movies that feature computers often boast unrealistic programmes or user interfaces but Cold War thrashes the competition by using randomly-typed gibberish for swathes of on-screen text. Whether these and other faults stem from ineptitude, haste, carelessness or simply rampaging enthusiasm at the various production stages is beyond me.

With location shooting in Korea and the Philippines, Cold War is, at best, a change of scenery. At worst, the locations are used to little effect. The Philippines is shown in one waterfront location while in the Korea scenes, nobody speaks Korean. By the film's end, it seemed shooting in the northern country added little to the script except a few scenes in the icy outdoors, kimchi on dining tables and the ability to let off explosives.

The Cold War painted billboard at the Imperial Theatre, Wanchai.

Credits:

Directed by Bryan Cheung
Starring Simon Yam and Christy Chung