It is very interesting to note that lots of Hong Kong movies are opening before the Chinese New Year. One is Michael WONG Man-tak and Louis KOO Tin-lok's "Super Car Criminals". Director LAU Koon-wai, who was quite famous in the 80s, has helped New Treasures as a director before; but all the movies were unsatisfactory with critics and at the box office. Can "Super Car Criminals" improve his standing as a director? Let's see.

"Super Car Criminals" is about a group of car criminals headed by Michael (Michael WONG Man-tak), with Raymond (Louis KOO Tin-lok), Simon LOUI Yue-yeung and Roy CHEUNG Yiu-yeung. The have access to detailed information on different car models and their owners so that they can steal what they need easily. Their buyer, Raymond, is a guy who bribes customs officials so the stolen cars can be 'imported' to the mainland easily.

In fact, Raymond is an undercover cop whose mission is to help his Dad (Paul CHUN Pui) investigate Michael's business. Raymond is finding it hard to get access to Mike's computer data, so finally he tries to get to know Mike better via his sister Mickey (Sherming YIU Lok-yee). But she is ignorant of Michael's businessm and Michael is starting to get suspicious about Ray ....

Going on the title, everyone is going to realise that "Super Car Criminals" is a group of criminals. This basic topic could be addressed in several dimensions -- the techniques used to steal cars, they way they run the business, the criminals' emotional lives.

Director LAU Koon-wai picks several approaches, and the movie has ended up with no particular focus. At the beginning it's about their techniques for stealing cars, then it switches to the business side and finally shifts to the "Super Car Criminals'" private lives. All of these could be interesting if they worked together well.

The big problem with the movie is that the bits which could have been used to make it more interesting have been handled in a standard, uninspired way. The only way it builds the criminals' characters is by showing the various ways they celebrate their successes. This takes the steam out of the relationships within the group in the latter half of the movie. I agree that each character should have something specific to stand out the character but it still requires interactions to point out the characters.

The ending could be better too. The build up to the finale is based on lots of dubious assumptions and it would be more convincing without them. For example, Michael keeps something secret from the rest of the group and it's not really believable that he wouldn't tell them, but the current ending is impossible without this convenient deception.

Most of the cast, like Michael WONG, Sherming YIU, Simon LOUI and Louis KOO, have been in lots of movies in the last few months. Their acting is okay here, but audiences are getting a bit tired of watching them.

Written by Ryan Law from Hong Kong Movie DataBase on 23 January 2000.