Starring: Simon Yam, Annie Liu, Nick Cheung,
Irene Wan, Maggie Siu
Director: Pang Ho-Cheung
Scheduled release: Now showing

At the beginning of this month, before it had even officially premiered anywhere in the world, Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus was accorded the Most Creative Award at the HK Film Critics Association’s 12th Golden Bauhinia Awards. And I’m betting most of the viewers of this latest film from the man who made his directorial debut just six years ago (with the funny and creative You Shoot, I Shoot) will think that’s the most deserving prize for this fascinating offering which received 10 Golden Bauhinia nominations but ended up only emerging triumphant in that one category.

Exodus starts off on an original note with a close-up of a pair of unblinking eyes. These are revealed to belong to a portrait of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II hanging on the wall in a corridor-like space where a group of men in swim trunks torture another man while wearing swimming goggles, snorkels and flippers. Filmed in slow motion (by cinematographer Charlie Lam, who previously worked with director Pang on AV (2005) and Isabella (2006)) and coming complete with a soaring classical music score, this scene that precedes the movie’s title strikes a seriously absurdist tone for this cleverly crafted work.

A multi-layered effort that comes across as bizarre early on, then seems funny before ultimately pushing emotional buttons that are more sad than anything else, Exodus’ story centres on a policeman who has been in the force for 23 years. Sergeant Tsim Kin Yip (Simon Yam) is more of a career pen-pusher than experienced criminal investigator. However, the middle-aged cop is moved to do some detecting of his own when his curiosity is aroused by the decision of an accused peeping tom, Kwan Ping Man (Nick Cheung), to drastically change his account of what led to his arrest after he’d been visited in custody by Inspector Fong (Maggie Siu).

Before his abrupt about-face, Man had told Yip he was seeking to collect evidence of the wrongdoings of a syndicate of female murderers out to rid the world of men. While that story sounds really far-fetched, especially at first telling, Yip somehow sees enough in it – or, at least, in the sincerity or desperation of an individual others are more ready to dismiss as a pervert or certifiable lunatic – to think there might be something worth checking out. After all, as the police sergeant tells Man’s troubled spouse, Pun Siu Yuen (Irene Wan), just because “something appears so bizarre, and people don’t believe it, it doesn’t mean that it’s untrue”.

Although she initially doesn’t come across as an ally (after all, she’s a possible member of the syndicate of murderers), Siu Yuen goes on to bond, and more, with Yip. In contrast, the policeman’s own wife, Ann (Annie Liu), is sceptical and unsympathetic while his more senior colleague, Inspector Fong, goes so far as to urge him to “Don’t try to be a hero”, “Don’t forget who you are”, and, most harshly, “Grow up.”

Most of Exodus’s plot focuses on the investigation of anti-male females that the film’s director and co-scripter (along with Cheuk Wan Chi and Jimmy Wan) said was inspired by a news article he had encountered while still in secondary school; one that had alleged all men in the world were being slowly but inescapably killed by women. However, the film’s elegant but unsettling visuals and often melancholy music (much of it originally composed by Gabriele Roberto) provide clues that its heart and sympathy lie elsewhere: more specifically, with an individual whose instincts to do what’s right early on in his career – not just later – tragically resulted in a life sadder and less successful than it otherwise might have been.

Yvonne Teh