A mainland policeman (Jet Li) reluctantly has to leave his poverty-stricken family and go undercover in Hong Kong as a member of an elite gang of thieves. To make things difficult, a tough Hong Kong policewoman (Anita Mui – ‘Moon Warriors’, ‘Miracles’, ‘The Executioners’) investigates the undercover policeman, eventually leading her back to his family in mainland China. The undercover policeman therefore finds himself submerged in his fake identity until the investigating policewoman returns to Hong Kong with his young now-motherless son (Tze Miu – seen also starring with Jet Li in ‘New Legend of Shaolin’ aka ‘Red Dragon’). The undercover policeman must save his son in this game of hidden identity and double-crossings without revealing his true identity to the ruthless leader of his gang (Yu Rong-Guang from ‘Iron Monkey’, ‘Vampire Hunters’).

This movie is an action-adventure; action directed by the double-teaming duo Corey Yuen Kwai and Yuen Tak and was produced by Wong Jing with laugh-out-loud moments and a dose of suspense/intrigue. The storyline is quite simple but offers some great acting to make it watchable and features some great action and moments of madness which would normally be impossible for characters placed in the realistic circumstances to face. The best feature of the movie involves the last fight where Jet Li and Tze Miu team up to face Yu Rong-Guang and two of his gang buddies. The action is also very innovative although not very frequent. Also, the actors seem a little too instinctive to be real and the hyper-kinetic lunatic approach by Yu Rong-Guang offers too much for the audience to maintain any sense of realism. Although, the main nemesis, Yu Rong-Guang lacks any character all of the other actors certainly do not. Also, the selection of location is wonderful as it contrasts a high-classed skyscraper-laden Hong Kong against the poor backdrop of narrow alleyways in mainland China.

The length of the movie is about right and carries some surprises. However, perhaps the main nemesis role did not suit Yu Rong-Guang. Furthermore, the movie is very serious throughout and the chemistry between certain actors (particularly involving Jet Li and Tze Mu in a father and son role respectively) was visible and worked wonderfully. Surprisingly, this movie has no intimate scenes unlike Wong Jing’s influence in other previous works (Thankfully!!!). Moreover, Anti Mui carries very little emotion and does not over excel in any particular area of acting as a 2-dimensional heroine.

Overall, this feature is great fun but looks unpolished in some areas since it lacks charisma and a sense of aiming to exceed and rake in viewers. Perhaps this movie was not intended to be anything special but could have experimented with a few original concepts to make it stand out from the crowd.

Overall Rating: 6.7/10