Expect the Unexpected

A clumsy gang from the mainland botches a jewellery robbery and gets stuck in the neighbourhood before it can get out. The police unit around Ken and Sam goes after these amateurs, but keeps confusing them with a far more dangerous crew working the same district. The film spends a long time on the squad's everyday jokes and on a growing closeness with one of the women on the team, then cuts all of it off at once, without warning. It is a Milkyway Image production and carries one of the harshest endings in late-nineties Hong Kong cinema. The credits list Patrick Yau as director and Johnnie To as producer, but it has long been reported that To took the direction over early in the shoot, and stylistically the film is counted among his. Lau Ching-wan and Simon Yam play two officers who show how thin the line between heroism and luck really is.