PTU

A police film that takes place over a single night in Hong Kong. Lo is a plain clothes detective. He gets into trouble with a gang in a restaurant, falls in the street, and passes out. When he wakes his pistol is gone. That means the end of his career. A lost weapon opens an inquiry and he has to find it before morning. A patrol unit helps him. Sergeant Ho and his team comb the streets and do it off the record. Something else happens the same night. A gang leader is stabbed and preparations for revenge begin. There is also the crime squad. A woman inspector is following Lo and senses that something is being hidden. From there the film watches three or four groups circling the same district. The patrol unit, the detective, the gangs and the crime squad, all in the same few streets. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but solidarity: the unit is protecting the uniform rather than the law, and the film neither praises nor condemns it. The city is completely empty. The scenes were shot after midnight; the shop windows are lit but there is nobody in the street, and that emptiness is the film's real atmosphere. The camera mostly stands at a distance. The unit is shown walking in wide shots and there are very few close-ups. The production spread over a long time. Shooting began in 2000, was interrupted, and was finished in pieces across years; the director was making other films in the meantime. The ending knots at a single junction and closes with a shootout that is over in seconds. Simon Yam, Maggie Shiu, Lam Suet and Ruby Wong are in the cast. Johnnie To directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hong Kong crime films built on atmosphere. Who it is not for: anyone expecting fast action; almost nothing happens through the film and everything is in the last ten minutes.