Running Out of Time

If this isn't Quentin Tarantino's favorite Hong Kong action flick, I'll eat my shorts. (Or is that a male-specific injunction?) The combination of good writing, great leads and fantastic action makes this one of the best films of its genre that I've seen. It's not the same kind of film Jackie Chan or Jet Li make because it's missing all the jaw-dropping chop-socky stuff, but that doesn't make this less palatable. In fact, I think this film is probably more accessible to the general public than the martial arts films (which cater to a certain folk). One of the two main characters, Andy Lau (a HUGE film and pop star over in Asia), who has only a few days to live conceives of a cat-and-mouse game with a cop he admires (played by the even better actor Ching Wan Lau) centering around stealing a famous diamond. Knowing how I feel about heist flicks, it says a lot I think this film does it quite well. It'll keep you thinking hard, since the filmmakers don't wait around for you to catch up. The editing is also eye-opening in that they use techniques, such as speeding up the film during several connecting-the-dots scenes, that I think weren't being used yet in Hollywood. The pièce de résistance is the scene in the car after the two leads have crashed it and are trying to retrieve their treasure, although the bowling alley sequence comes in a close second. If you don't generally watch foreign films because the sub-titles make it hard to read and watch the action at the same time, try this one as an exception to the rule.

original title: Aau Chin
year: 1999
length: 93 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216165/combined