Sep
1
2007
Eye In The Sky
Posted by luna6 14 Comments
Movie : Eye In The Sky / Gun chung
Release Date : June 21, 2007
Country : Hong Kong
Director : Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring : Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Kate Tsui
Runtime : 90 Min.
Editor Rating : 5.0
Users Rating: 6 
(11 votes)
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Plot Synopsis : Eye In The Sky is a slick new Hong Kong crime thriller from prolific screenwriter now director Nai-Hoi Yau. Having the cinematic style of “Breaking News” or even “Infernal Affairs” – the film revolves around a ultra secretive “Surveillance Unit (SU)” of the Hong Kong police force. The SU team are attempting to track down a ruthless gang of criminals as that group takes out jewelry stores all over Kong Kong.
Move Review : “Eye In The Sky” doesn’t waste much time in cutting to the chase so to speak. The film features a dizzying array of well orchestrated undercover surveillance scenes – all from the opening scene. The manner in which the camera followed the various undercover agents as they tailed suspected criminals felt like a Robert Altman montage transported into the gritty underworld of Hong Kong. While those scenes were fun to watch other aspects of the film were not nearly as impressive.
Much thought seemed to have gone into creating those stylish surveillance scenes, but the characters themselves seemed more of an afterthought. None of the characters had much depth and were stereotypical of thier genre – all boilerplate cops and criminals.There was the nice cop with an edge (Simon Yam), a new rookie female cop with heart (Kate Tsui), a clever mastermind of the criminal group (Tony Leung Kai Fai) and a bunch of supporting characters thrown in as light filler. The only character development that existed in film would have been with Kate Tsui’s Constable Ka-Po Ho (Piggy) character. Ka-Po Ho initially joined the undercover surveillance team with an eager to please gung-ho like attitude. Her confidence and enthusiasm for the job quickly eroded when she saw with her own eyes the violent murder of a police officer. Her dilemma was solved a few scenes later by Sergeant Wong uttering something along the lines of “You won’t succeed if you give up to quickly”. Duh – problem now solved. Kate Tsui, being the 2004 Ms. Hong Kong beauty queen, did provide for a pleasing face to look at, but her performance was stiff throughout the movie.
The criminal gang themselves had the facade of a dangerous criminal group and in a way they were. A shoot em out scene on a overpass in broad daylight showed that the criminals could be ruthless, but in the grand scheme of things they only held up a couple of jewelry stores! That group would would rank pretty low against other criminal groups featured in past Hong Kong crime thrillers.
As an added twist that didn’t go very deep, the title of the film referred to the Chinese belief in divine intervention as a distributor of justice. With the fall of the hook (watch the ending and you’ll see), “Eye In The Sky” reiterated the point that what comes around goes around. The ending was also not very believable and smelled of fromage.
Although “Eye In The Sky” often displayed well orchestrated undercover surveillance scenes, other aspects of the film felt remarkably hollow. Perhaps reflective of a director that has written dozens of screenplays before but never directed a film and starring a former beauty pageant winner, the film offered a decent amount of style but not all that much in substance. Outside of those surveillance scenes, the most memorable aspects about the film would have been the not so subtle advertisement placements of Lacoste and Motorola products into the film and the near constant munching on junk food by the characters in the “Eye In The Sky”. Like I said there wasn’t a whole lot to get excited about.
buy Eye In The Sky from YesAsia
Cast:
Simon Yam – Sergeant Wong Man Chin
Tony Leung Ka Fai – Chan Chong ShanKate Tsui – Constable Ho Ka-Po
Suet Lam – Ng Tung / ‘Fatman’
Maggie Siu – Madam
Siu-Fai Cheung – Chief Inspector Chan
Ting Yip Ng
Yiu-Cheung Lai
Samuel Pang
Suet-sum Tse – Master’s wife
Sunny Wong
Au Hin Wai
Chung Him Law
Frank Michael Liu
Kung Chan
f you like this movie you may enjoy : Infernal Affairs, Protege, Death Note
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2007 Movie Reviews, Chinese Movies, Movie Reviews |
Comments
14 Comments so far
Yeah I would! It is a very sweet movie. And it has little a Polish element in the background :D
Have not had a chance to check out “Turn Left, Turn Right” yet Nalyah .. would you also recommend it ?
Have you seen ‘Turn Left, Turn Right’ yet Luna?
Thanks for the tips. Turn Left, Turn Right and Happy Birthday sounds promising.
Whispers and Moans wasn’t bad but one of those movies that got worse as it went along. (the image of Mandy Chiang as “Nana” giving her confessional to Yan Ng “Elsie” while looking up to the sky with violins wailing in the background still haunts my mind from the cheesiness of it).
Protege was an ok film as well but nothing that hasn’t been told before (cops vs triads).
I’ll also throw in “Spider Lillies” into the mix – even though its technically a Taiwanese film. I watched that one to check out Isabella Leong again after watching her in “Isabella”. Let’s just say “Spider Lillies” was so bad I just stopped watching it at the half way point. Muck written from the mindset of a 13 year old.
Hoping to catch some better Chinese films in the future.
Well, 2007 has been disappointing for HK movies, but there are a couple of good ones:
Invisible Target
Whispers and Moans
Happy Birthday
Protege
And Jiang Hu is pretty damn good, even if it is an Infernal Affiars rip-off
I love HK / Chinese films. Maybe you should check other Chinese movie genres besides crime thrillers. Because after Infernal Affairs, everything seems to be a rip-off of that movie (ie: jiang-hu)
Here’s my list:
• Kung Fu Hustle (action / comedy)
• AV (drama / comedy)
• Turn Left, Turn Right (romance)
i dont blame u for giving low scores on hk movies. everything seems so generic (slapstick or police/gang movies) and just parading of stars. it becomes difficult to believe any character in hk movies (for me neways) coz they recycle so many of the stars in same storyline movies. theres some pretty arty n kewl movies from china, but i dont know, hk just is putting out interesting stories, roles, new actors…maybe its something in the movie industry there. kinda disapointing since hk is such an interstin place~
I thought it was pretty good, especially since most movies from HK nowadays are a waste of time to watch, this one was like most movies that johnny to also makes, (he produced this one i believe) so i recommend if you like his movies go wqatch this one also…
It has almost all the faces in it from HK that you expect to see in it, only andy lau or the other tony is missing…
7 out of 10
“2046″ with guns blazing…how can I refuse that? Expect a review by next weekend. cheers…
You definitely should…imagine “2046″ with guns blazing…I think you will enjoy it.
I haven’t seen that movie, should I put it in my que of movies to watch?
You liked Exiled?? You gotta at least like that film
LifeFirst : That’s a pretty good question. I have thought about that since most of the recent Chinese/Hong Kong have been negative. Even the more critically acclaimed ones like “After This Our Exile” I found disappointing. There’s definitely no bias against Hong Kong/China whatsoever. As an example this past summer I spent a week in Shanghai and loved the city and people. The low scores have been the product of weak film offerings and nothing else. Korean films have also been pretty weak as well. Like most people I love Kar Wai Wong films and personally hold “Chungking Express” to be in the top five films of all time.
Honestly when I watched “Eye In The Sky” my impressions was that the director wanted to take the scene from “Infernal Affairs” – when the Chapman To character told his buddy that anybody that is looking at you intently is an undercover cop – and build a film around that idea. Not a bad premise to start from, but the characters and story itself were all so generic compared to those stylistic surveillance scenes. That’s why “Eye In The Sky” was given a lukewarm response.
Thanks for the comments though … cheers..
You don’t like Hong Kong movies much do you? It seems like you don’t give them high scores like you always give Korean/ Japanese movies. I know that HK films are down in the pits right now but man…you didn’t even enjoy Eye in the Sky?? I thought it was at least pretty decent.