Reviewed by: ryan Date: 11/21/1999 Summary: Unexpected Killing (1999) MAK Kin-bong is one of the active directors for B&S Digital Video productions. Before 'Unexpected Killing', he directed the B&S DV movies 'Stupid' and 'The Social Worker from the Edge'. After two ghost stories, he has switched genres by directing a movie about killers. Computer tutor Paul (CHO Wing-lim), is running out of money for his wife and the family. He feels so frustrated that he shouts that he would take any job when he is drunk in a pub. A killer Ben (MA Tak-chung) subsequently gives Paul a chance for money -- training Paul to be a killer. After two months' training, Paul gets his first assignment. The Target is Ben! Ben has a lover, Jo (LEE Sze-pui), but four months ago Jo disappeared suddenly. Ben is so depressed that he wants to terminate his life by training another killer to kill him. Soon enough, Ben takes a phone call from Jo's friend Gigi, saying that Jo is back and she would like to meet Ben that night. However, the phone line is chopped and Paul is almost ready to kill Ben ...... The tone of 'Unexpected Killing' is very dark. It quickly becomes a story filled with unexpected tragedy. Almost all the leading characters in the movie do not have a happy ending, including Ben, Paul, Jo and Paul's wife. The movie also wants to express the feeling of a killer. The production of the movie is ambitious, but is able to show the basic idea. There is room for improvement with the production. The descriptions on both killers, Paul and Ben lack depth. To make their tragedies darker, it is necessary to show the conflicts they are facing. With Ben's character, it would have been better to show his depression after losing Jo by showing how much he felt for her, as she is the initiative for Ben to terminate his life. They could also have shown the relationship from Jo's point of view. The character of Paul could have been a lot deeper. He is a computer tutor under great pressure from his wife and his family, so for him to become a killer is really going from one extreme to another. This would have added a great deal more realism to the latter part of the film. The overall impression would have been better if they had put more emphasis on the training process. We can see it would be hard for Ben to train Paul as a killer, it's obvious. The process should be interesting and inventive. All we are shown is how Paul shoot three glass bottles. This is rather lacklustre. Ben is a middle-aged man around 40, however, MA Tak-chung is too young to pick up the character. For the movie, he dyed his hair white but it looks like he is a youngster rather than a middle-aged man. Also his girl Jo seems to be too young to be a girl of a middle-aged man. 'Unexpected Killing' plays a lot of tricks with the time frames. This is a good point of the movie. They tried to split the whole story into background pieces as the story continues and it works well. 'Unexpected Killing' is a movie about the feelings of a killer, a dark tragedy. The idea is good but the finished article still has room for improvement.