SYNOPSIS:
John Fok (Eason Chan) is the kingpin of illegal red oil in Greater China. When an oil tanker explodes accidentally, he becomes the focus of investigation by Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese police and is forced to halt his business to wait things out. Just as he is finally ready to turn his fortune around, however, his only son is kidnapped! Senior Inspector Molline Szeto (Sammi Cheng) is the rising star in the police force with her characteristic sangfroid and precision. However, in matters of love, she is totally at wit's end. Poised at the crossroad of her life, she is thrilled to be assigned to investigate the kidnap of John's son.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Initially, this review was going to make a point on how China’s censorships will affect Singaporean’s viewing enjoyment. It’s been mention that due to China’s stringent censorship (Asian movie fans would remember that infamous Infernal Affairs “dual endings” that had to cater to the China’s censorship) and the importance that China market is to the Hong Kong film industries nowadays that several scenes in this film had to be reshot and cut down from it’s 97 mins to it’s 91 mins runtime.
I was also warned by fellow movie fans that the ending would feel abrupt and had that unlikeable China’s 'Baddie must pay for their crimes' type of ending. Ironically the version we are getting in Singapore is only surprisingly 88 mins long and the edited ending didn’t really affect the story that much.
It made one wonder if there were more cuts or had the 91 mins runtime been reported wrongly. But since there nothing much I could do about the shorter runtime except to mention it, let’s move on to why I felt that the supposedly edited ending didn’t really amount to a big change to the enjoyment of this movie.
In this version, the set up for that 'Baddie must pay for their crimes' version had been planted all over in this movie. Certain Characters and Events felt blandly added through out this movie in order for the movie to end in a way that the China censors could accept It felt that certain additional characters were 'inserted' into movie and somehow 'rob time / focus' from other characters that were originally in the story. The 'changes' made in this movie also disrupt the flow of story telling earlier on and it felt like it’s going everywhere instead of focusing on the 'original' idea of this movie. In short, it wasn’t just the end that was mess up but the whole story telling in Lady Cop & Papa Crook.
It’s a pity as there are a couple of things that going well or had potential in it’s ideology. As a come back role after 3 years of absent in Hong Kong movies, Sammi Cheng’s cool quirky comical Lady Cop (Maureen Szeto) was a gem and a series of franchise movies could be made with her playing this Lady Cop character.
The premise of gangsters and police officers being trapped in one location and how their methods of solving the kidnap case differs from each other while it could also be mutually beneficial was intriguing. Lady Cop & Papa Crook delivers with it’s razzle dazzle sassy showcase of the Police’s efficiency and the Triads’ shadowy networking power and brutality.
However this film went on, firing all it’s cannons and resulting in a very bungling film. The film tried to merge comedy with the usual kidnapping tension and resulted in one film that neither that funny nor suspenseful. This film also tried to add too much subplots and twist that felt rather convoluted and unproductive. It’s hard to see if it’s the directors at fault in the story telling aspect or was it because of the bending backwards for the China authorities that caused such a mess in an otherwise potentially good movie.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This movie comes with a trailer and for movie fans who are able to pick up spoilers quickly, this is one movie that should be avoided as it revealed scenes of the kidnapped child.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Lady Cop & Papa Crook is well presented in both audio / visually in this Dvd format.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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