Starring: Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue, Jaycee Chan, Wu Jing, Andy On, Elanne Kwong
Director: Benny Chan
Scheduled release: Now showing

Say the name Benny Chan to Hong Kong cineastes and the explosive Big Bullet (1996) and general ‘bang for your buck’ film treats are what often come to mind. And July 2007 finds the action movie specialist – whose debut directorial effort (A Moment of Romance (1990)) is one of the most referenced local films of recent times – in the triple role of director, producer and co-scripter of the year’s first local summer action blockbuster.

Invisible Target (whose Chinese title translates into English as ‘Men of True Colour’) contains big explosions, real – as opposed to computer-generated – fires, impressive stunts, bruising-looking hand-to-hand combat and bullet-ridden gun battles galore. At the same time, this star-studded offering also contains the kind of dramatic moments geared to tug at your heartstrings and even get you tearing up, together with snippets of comedy (one involving a taxi passenger is particularly prime). Obviously the ambitions of this film’s makers are for a work far greater than your generic actioner high on violence but low on emotion.

Thus it is that a daring armoured-car heist and full-on shoot-out in Central early in the movie are quickly followed by the revelation that one of the innocent casualties is the beloved fiancée of a consequently vengeful cop named Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse). And after another violent encounter between the police and the Ronin Gang, a dangerous band of seven orphans most people would want to steer clear of, a second hot-headed cop, Carson Fong Yik Wei (Shawn Yue), also finds himself thirsting to get his own back.

While chasing up what turns out to be a red herring, Chun and Fong make the acquaintance of a third young policeman: Wai King Ho (Jaycee Fong) is a uniformed cop rather than a plainclothes officer. He – another orphan, albeit one who at least has a grandmother (the immaculate Lisa Lu) to live with – is far more idealistic, naive and ‘by the book’ than Chun, whose behaviour frustrates his commanding officer to no end, and Fong, whose unorthodox methods are fully displayed when he goes into an expensive restaurant to arrest slimy loan shark Cheng (character actor Lam Suet in an eye-catching cameo).

After the trio of Young Turks encounter the remnants of the Ronin Gang (down to three men and a woman after a double-cross), one of its members (Andy On) reveals something to Ho that would make lesser men crazy for revenge. The honourable officer continues to maintain, however, that he seeks the arrest of lawbreakers rather than their death. At the same time, though, he is united with Chun and Fong in realizing that courage and uncommon persistence will be required to bring to justice a group of criminals who appear fearless and, in their own way, principled.

In his role as Tien Yien Seng, the leader of the Ronin Gang, Wu Jing shines, and not only, as one might expect of the martial arts expert, during fight sequences. There are no two ways about it: next to the other actors in Invisible Target, he comes across as a man among boys; consequently the movie’s Mandarin-speaking criminals ultimately appear better than one might otherwise expect of cop-killers, despite a trail of innocent victims in their wake.

Rest assured though that this often thrilling, thunderous rollercoaster ride of a movie does have at least one truly despicable villain. However, since the scoundrel is only revealed late in the work, it’s best the audience knows as little as possible about this individual before entering the cinema.

Yvonne Teh