When a Hong Kong police officer (Lam Suet) loses his gun during a run-in with street thugs, it sets in motion a chain of events during the course of a single night, culminating in an early-morning shootout in this slow-boiling police drama from Johnnie To, one of Hong Kong’s brightest filmmakers of the last 20 years.
Ever since 1999 when To released two of that year’s best films, RUNNING OUT OF TIME and THE MISSION, the filmmaker has maintained a high standard for producing slick, urban crime dramas with a familiar stock cast comprised of some of Hong Kong’s most talented actors including Simon Yam, Lam Suet and Roy Cheung. PTU brings all of these actors together in a film that bucks the trend of the Hong Kong industry by making the movie itself the star, rather than its cast.
PTU was a pet project of producer and director Johnnie To that took three years to complete. He had a personal interest in exploring the subject of team spirit forged within the interpersonal relations of a special police unit assigned to deal directly with street-level criminal activity in Hong Kong. By shooting over three years, in between other commercial projects, To was able to get one of his most unusual and visceral works completed, one that otherwise may not have ever seen the light of day.
Simon Yam, the biggest name among the roster of onscreen talent, delivers an excellent performance as the police unit’s taciturn leader. This intentionally understated performance let’s great character actors like Lam Suet share the limelight equally. It’s possible that only a mainstream director like Johnnie To could get away with this. Even celebrated arthouse director Wong Kar-wai has always relied on star power to carry his movies to greater success.
The film is a terrific showcase for Lam Suet. He doesn’t have the physical traits of a typical leading man but he has the presence and distinctive character to make a role like this his own. It is Lam’s everyman looks and ability to effectively juggle a variety of emotions without being too withdrawn or too emotive that gives him an edge over many of his peers. As Johnnie To suggests, Lam doesn’t act. Rather, he displays genuine reactions and emotions which is something many actors struggle with. He’s a talent that Hong Kong needs to clone and use more often. It’s the image of a disheveled Lam with a bloodied bandage on his head and crooked cigarette hanging from his mouth that is almost iconic. To was a smart man to give this former production manager a chance.
Although the acting performances are good and To’s direction is assured, PTU would not likely stand out from the immense pack of Hong Kong crime flicks without a good hook and it has a big one that might be familiar to fans of Akira Kurosawa. In Kurosawa’s 1949 classic STRAY DOG, Toshiro Mifune is a homicide detective who has his pistol pick-pocketed. He teams up with a fellow detective in a search for it in what becomes the driving force for the plot. Similarly, PTU presents Lam as a detective in Hong Kong who loses his gun, presumably to a gang of thugs working for a triad boss. With a promotion coming his way, Lam is desperate to get his gun back as losing it to a criminal could jeopardize his job. Simon Yam is a fellow police officer leading a police unit in an effort to help their friend recover the weapon, even if it means bending a few laws.
Johnnie To has stated that PTU was not inspired by Kurosawa’s film. Rather, it was a way for him to explore the team spirit aspect previously mentioned. In support of this claim, the film quickly moves off in its own direction from Kurosawa’s initial premise, largely by creating the illusion that anything can happen and it may not be what you might expect. The narrative is lucid and dialogue minimalist, with characters affecting yet largely at the mercy of events beyond their control. It’s interesting to see how Hong Kong is transformed by night into a murky realm populated only by punks, prostitutes, vandals, professional killers, and dysfunctional police officers. What makes the film enjoyable is that To keeps these players from seeing the bigger picture that the audience is shown. They’re all fumbling about with their own agenda and yet fate seemingly steps in finally to make sense of it all.
It seems like To is drawing on elements of European, neo-realist filmmaking in keeping the plot loose, settings starkly authentic and characters flawed. Yet it seems without him having the ability or interest to go all the way. His characters are more complex than usually portrayed in a Hong Kong movie but still disconnected from reality by exaggerated or unreal situations such as a scene where street thugs are stripped and thrown into tiny cages as a form of punishment. The locations in the film are real but empty and devoid of life. It’s as if the city has become a rented out playground for the film’s players to interact in a nocturnal world of their own. This seems to have been the intent.
Chung Chi-wing, who previously scored To’s THE MISSION, comes up with an odd electronic soundtrack that at times compliments the film well with Vangelis-like atmospheric riffs and falls completely flat at other times. His biggest mistake is trying to use sampled or just bad-sounding electric guitar that comes off as amateurish. He also repeats the same theme far too often with sometimes discordant notes, while To lets it play during scenes that would have worked better with less scoring altogether. Avid Hong Kong movie watchers may not even notice or care all that much. Hong Kong movies are notorious for having bad soundtracks, so much so, that I am convinced that there is a cultural gap in place. This is reinforced in my mind by the Golden Horse nomination that Chung’s work on this film earned.
Although quite entertaining at face value, PTU would have worked better as an opportunity for social commentary, along the lines of Kuei Chih-hung’s 1974 classic THE TEA HOUSE, starring kung fu movie great Chen Kuan-tai. To makes small strides by establishing a street-level social order among police and criminals alike. The police brotherhood theme and the image of Hong Kong as a dysfunctional city at night could have been fleshed out with greater clarity. The film’s approach is refreshing in that it mostly steers clear of the Jackie Chan-style heroics of a pure action film like POLICE STORY. It just doesn’t go far enough in the opposite direction. By the end, we’re shown a typical, slow-mo gun battle that could have come straight out of a John Woo movie. Unfortunately, it has less meaning since we don’t even know who four of the principle shooters are or why they show up at the end. The rest of the movie is not as action-packed so we’re not really given either a serious drama or a fast-moving actioner. It’s something in between, which works on one level yet falls short of greatness.
I’ll give credit to Johnnie To for trying something different. I see moments of brilliance in this movie where To has complete control of a dynamic scene that contains little or no dialogue, yet speaks volumes. This is about the point where To’s films begin to show strong influences from masters like Kurosawa, particularly in the way that the camera is situated and how scenes play out on a visceral level. He doesn’t always get it perfect but it’s still more artful and purposeful than a lot of the other work coming out of Hong Kong these days. PTU makes a nice companion piece to To’s subsequent films, THROW DOWN and BREAKING NEWS. All three share a Michael Mann and Kurosawa level of assuredness and stand apart from his other films.
by Mark PollardRelated Topics:
gunplay • Johnnie To • police • Simon Yam • triad
