Opening Day: 28 February 2008

Synopsis:

An extremely brutal armed robbery case has brought two very unusual young detectives together in Hong Kong. Both men have been known not to follow the usual rules of conduct in solving crimes. Lincoln, the younger brother of the deceased, an ex-policeman in China, has sworn to find the man who has murdered his brother. While he investigates the murder on his own in Hong Kong, he meets Michael, a CID officer on suspension. Michael has often been warned against insubordination and for pulling his own stunts to capture criminals on the run.

Movie Review:

You know you can’t take “Playboy Cops” seriously when the opening scene involved a cop propelling down on his own helicopter to catch a small-time robber. Believe it or not, the cop even throws wads of money everywhere to lure him out.

But as the movie progresses, this action-comedy directed by Jingle Ma turns out to be quite a mixed bag. The story is typical of another cop-buddy movie. Two men at loggerheads has to come together to solve a murder case, they fight over the same woman and at the end of the day, their hatred for each other turns into friendship. You get the drift.

Shawn Yue plays Michael Mak, the aforementioned rich cop who also drives posh cars and has a fiery temper that result his cop duties being suspended. Partnered with Lincoln (mainland actor Chen Kun) to solve a brutal robbery in which Lincoln’s elder brother was killed. Yue sort of reprises his role in last year’s Benny Chan action extravaganza, “Invisible Target” but the man has stretched his acting muscles in a variety of genres and has proved he is more than capable of playing the action hero in recent years. Thus despite the similarities, he still managed to turns in a decent performance.

While not necessary possessed a huge budget and intense action sequences to keep you enthralled for the whole 98 minutes, Jingle Ma throws in some eye-candy in the form of Linda Chung, a winner of Miss Chinese International Pageant 2004 to be the love interest. Starting his career in the cinematography department and venturing to be a director in 1998, Ma who also co-wrote this project has previously shown his fairly weak scribing side in the forms of his past works such as “Seoul Raiders” and “Sliver Hawk”. “Playboy Cops” is unfortunately no exception.

It could have been a far better effort if Ma has kept things simpler. His best effort so far in my opinion was “Tokyo Raiders” (2000), an incredibly enjoyable ride tagged with a forgivable wafer-thin plot, redeemable for the fact that it didn’t take itself seriously.

However, “Playboy Cops” commits the biggest mistake by cranking up on the fun factor in the beginning. When the movie tries to steer its direction halfway through, it’s quite hard to follow the all too serious plot as we wade along.

Movie Rating:

(“Playboy Cops” is a mixed bag. An unexpected fluffy popcorn piece that turns gritty)

Review by Linus Tee