Ekin Cheng leads the cast in this gangster film that feels more like it belongs in the early 90s as opposed to the new millenium.  Not to say that Goodbye Mr. Cool is a bad film, but it seems rather out of place for the era.

Ekin plays the character of Lung (which means dragon, but is translated in the subtitles as Cool).  After serving time in a Thai prison for an attempted triad hit, he reforms and decides to lead a simple life.  But he cannot so easily escape from the shadows of his past life when he returns to Hong Kong.  He tries to take up the simple position of a waiter in a Kowloon Teahouse run by an old friend.  News of his return soon reaches the ears of his ex-girlfriend Helen.  She is disappointed with the 'new' Lung and wants the reputable man of the past to return.

For the most part the story is quite intriguing and it successfully runs  back and forth through past and present events in such a way that the flashbacks do not become cumbersome.  The best scene being a rather funny memory of Lung and his buddies on their first extortion job.  For a film of this genre, the performances are all above grade with the most notable being Karen Mok as the manipulative Helen.  Ekin Cheng pulls of his performance, but this role might have been better portrayed by someone else.  This indeed may be no fault of Ekin Cheng as an actor but perhaps the Ho Nam character from the Young and Dangerous series is still clinging to him a bit too tightly.  Rain Li gives a decent performance as well with her portrayal of Ms. Mung, a young teacher with a crush on Lung.

The big downfall of the film is its finale.  The entire story builds to a confrontation between Lung and Helen's new boyfriend Prince.  An honorable fight between the two is ruined by a gimmick typical to the triad genre, but of course this should come as no surprise given the title of the film, so viewer be warned, Mr. Cool will not leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Overall review rating : 2.5

Review by Paul Fox

Location:  AMC Festival Walk

Time: Thursday 19 April   5:15pm