DIVERGENCE (2005)

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Super 35)
Sound format: Dolby Digital

Three disparate individuals - a heartbroken cop (Aaron Kwok), an assassin-for-hire (Daniel Wu) and a corrupted defence attorney (Ekin Cheng) - are drawn together by a series of murders which unite them in unexpected ways.

Benny Chan's disappointing blockbuster owes something of a thematic debt to INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002) in its combination of hard-pumping action and mournful drama, though the elements are weakened by a lop-sided plot which fails to gel in a satisfactory manner. Ivy Ho's screenplay juggles three separate narrative strands, building slowly and surely to a climactic intersection, though much of the running time is given over to Kwok's obsession with his absent girlfriend (she disappeared under mysterious circumstances a year earlier), relegating Wu and Cheng to support status in underwritten roles. As usual, the female characters don't really amount to very much, though Angelica Lee and Ning Jing do their best with the flimsy material, and there are guest appearances by Eric Tsang and Yu Rong-guang.

However, the movie isn't a complete wash-out: There's a terrific set-piece in which Kwok stumbles on Wu at a crime scene and pursues him through busy traffic to a crowded marketplace where they engage in brutal combat, an electrifying sequence which rouses the entire production. All the actors play to their strengths, though Cheng is stoic to the point of redundancy, and the film concludes on a predictably tragic note. High-class, high-gloss stuff, no more or less.