now, 'crazy stone' has been one of the year's cinematic talking points; a small mainland production, that has beaten off competition from imported hollywood blockbusters. made under andy lau's focus first cuts imprint, the film cost less than us$500000, but made back over us$2million...

the film is set in chongqing, a smoggy port on the yangtze river; this is a modern, yet built up, over-crowded and pretty grimy urban china. a factory owner, has found a priceless piece of jade, which he plans to exhibit at a run-down temple that he also owns. he's hoping to raise money and sell the jade, in order to be able to pay his workers and keep his land from the clutches of an evil, bald-headed, cross-bow wielding property developer.

to cut a couple of corners, he gets bao, an ex-cop who works for him, to assemble a security team, who can guard the precious stone. meanwhile, the the corrupt property developer has employed a professional thief, to steal the stone and a small gang of small-time crooks, have had the idea of stealing the stone as well...

the film plays out like a classic heist film, somewhere between (the excellent) 'the hot rock' and (the not so good) 'oceans eleven'; it is packed with humour, both in the situations that it manufactures, it's characters and it's dialogue. there's bags of style, some nice editing and a great atmosphere, created by the grimy surroundings of chongqing.

this film is fun, it's funny, clever and stylish. i recommende it and i shall be seeking out 'mongolian ping pong' (which has just got a r1 release), another film from the director, ning hao.