Maureen Szetoh (Sammi Cheung) is a brash female cop that has more problems dealing with her personal life. She’s been stuck in a stale 10 year relationship with her live-in boyfriend who works as a sculptor. Meanwhile, John Fok (Eason Chan) is a triad kingpin involved in smuggling oil between China & Hong Kong. The cops disrupt his latest shipment, which leads to huge financial losses for John Fok. Things quickly turn for the worse when his son is kidnapped and the abductor asks for $80 million dollars. Maureen Szetoh is then assigned to the case and although John Fok is weary of the Hong Kong cops he wants his son back at any price even if it requires co-operating with the cops.

With this set-up there’s a plethora of angles the movie could have taken, but Felix Chong & Siu Fai always chose the safe & bland route. The tension between the cops and triads while they work together to uncover the kidnapper’s identity, works in only the most minimal of ways to bring life to the characters … but only in the most minimal of ways. On the bright side, Sammi Cheung, rules with her charismatic screen presence. She often carried the appearance of a punk rock model dressed in a Wall Street get-up and made that type of persona come alive on screen. Eason Chan is given a far more generic character to play and he seemed intent to play it as generically as possible. There’s also not much to notice with Chapman To’s limited role either (except the excess weight he’s put on since his Infernal Affairs days). Kate Tsui also appears in a limited role and she’s as nondescript as her peers.

Surprisingly, the film also has a noticeable low budget feel & look. The campy elements worked marginally, but is held down by the flat movie script. What “Lady Cop & Papa Crook” has going for it is the charismatic Sammi Leung playing the tough lady cop to a tee. I did have a ball watching her onscreen, but besides her performance there just isn’t anything else about “Lady Cop & Papa Crook” to get excited about. Not surprisingly, the resolution of the film turns out to elicit nothing more than a yawn. The movie would have been a complete train wreck without Sammi Cheung, but as it is, “Lady Cop & Papa Crook” turns out to be a marginal picture that builds interest occasionally, but fails to turn any of it into something more meaningful.