Big Bullet

A police film set in Hong Kong. Bill Chu is an inspector. He disobeys a superior during an operation and is demoted. His new posting is an emergency response unit. The team is small, poorly equipped, and nobody takes them seriously. There are three others. One complains constantly, one has just qualified, one is waiting for his pension. From there the film opens on routine. A noise complaint, a lost cat, a street fight. Then they answer a call. There are bodies on the ground. A jewellery robbery has been carried out and the robbers are professionals. The unit gets into it. The robbers are military trained. Their weapons are heavy and their escape is planned. Their leader is Bird. He was once in special forces and recognises no rule. Homicide takes the case over. Bill is told to stay out. He does not. What the narrative is interested in is not an investigation but hierarchy: its idea is that good policemen are constantly blocked by their superiors, and that the job is less about who does it than about who takes the credit. The last section takes place at an airport. An aircraft, a runway and a race against time. The action is high-tempo. A vehicle chase, an explosion and a gunfight. Benny Chan was one of the directors who set the sense of pace in Hong Kong action of this period. The violence is not realistic and the narrative does not claim it is. The relationships inside the team are the film's warm side. The men argue constantly and never abandon each other. Lau Ching-Wan, Jordan Chan, Theresa Lee and Anthony Wong are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1990s Hong Kong action. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the plot is thin and the characters stay at the level of types.