This is a strange film. That is a good thing.

The director of this film has worked with Clara Law in the past as a screenwriter, and she is in fact credited as a "visual consultant" for this film, whatever that means. His arty background certainly shows in this film, which has a lot of interesting direction (there's a hilarious fight scene in a car) and a very interesting look, which is a combination of film noir shadow and grit with occasional surreal splashes of color (think of something like Toys).

The plot of the film is fairly simple. Jacky Cheung is hired to tail a teeny-bopper from the Mainland. He loses track of her pretty quickly and suddenly he's being threatened because he's the one who last saw her. It seems that this girl is considerably more important than he thought, though the reason for that is unclear until later.

This is a fairly standard film noir type of setup, but the execution is where it gets strange. The story mixes film noir with comedy (ranging from subtle to slapstick) as Jacky Cheung's character gets into deeper and deeper trouble, despite the fact that he takes almost no action for the first portion of the film.

Jacky Cheung is not an actor I've noticed too much in the past. He seems to always be in supporting roles rather than taking the lead. I liked him quite a bit in Days of Being Wild but his part was fairly small. This film really shows off his talent. He has just the right mix of bewilderment, annoyance, and compassion for his character. Mavis Fan plays her
character mostly for giggles, which is actually kind of endearing in an annoying sort of way. She does manage to pull off the few serious scenes she has.

The film doesn't go totally to the art side of things, it does have plenty of predictable moments (the ending) but that doesn't really detract. The film is too goofy to be criticized for copping out, and this goofiness is its charm. It doesn't take itself too seriously.