This is a very strange film, or at least it would seem so for the first 30 minutes. The strange tale of an assassin (Wu Chien Lien) who has no had no life of her own (due to her mothers overprotection), who gets mixed up with a man (Lau Ching Wan) who runs a noodle stall in Hong Kong.

It’s very unclear for a while what producer Johnnie To was trying to achieve with this, and even by the end of the film it still leaves a few questions open…like why oh why bother with the relationship side of things. Lau Ching Wan is quite honestly wasted in this film, as he is hardly on the screen for much time and doesn’t have a lot to do. How people can think he plays a good performance in this is beyond me, because he hardly does a thing, not to say he is bad though. Wu Chien Lien plays the shallow, lifeless character well, but the character she portrays is very dull, which also makes her performance look bad to a certain extent (a million miles from her better performances since). Which leaves just one thing to save the film, the action, which after a long 30 minutes begins and the overall reminiscence style of John Woo. Another side story also begins to unfold with a criminal family in Korea, which also gets the womans mother involved.

Interesting concept for Johnnie To, with a good plot, but the story really is too slow. Patrick Leung does a good job of directing it, with a lot of varied and interesting camera shots and effects. Wu Chien Lien and Lau Ching Wan don’t have enough time to act as most of the film is either slow or action packed. Sounds strange right? Well it is. The ending is as predictable as they get too!

All in all, it’s very entertaining, but also very uneven. It leaves you wondering if it’s supposed to be action or romance. It’s probably more romance, which is a big shame because neither stars shine in this, the story is slow, but the action is much better than any of the performances – though it’s limited. With parts of this left out, and more concentration on the action side of things, this could have been excellent. I’m still really undecided what to rate this, but I have gone probably higher than it deserves. It’s certainly worth seeing, and although I don’t agree with some of the points other reviewers have made, I think most people would enjoy it.

Rating: [4/5]

By the way, I want to thank ‘Sydneyguy’ for the VCD, as I lost my copy a while ago and he gave me the opportunity to see it again – thanks!