646f9e108c Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong&#39;s organized crime Syndicates. Dying Wah has nothing to be afraid of anymore when he realizes that he has only 4 weeks to live, and he&#39;s determined to get revenge for his father. Later, when Wah successfully gets away in a robbery, detective San makes up his mind and chases after Wah and arrests him. But, we can only have one winner in a game, who&#39;s gonna win? This film was recommended to me by a friend. I don&#39;t know much about Hong Kong cinema, but having seen Aau Chin, I definately want to find out more. I really enjoyed it, and found it was surprisingly different from what I was expecting. I had prepared myself for lots of big fights, lots of blood and gore, and more than a little machismo. What I got was a sad, sensitive and suprisingly funny bit of cinema. Ok, so there are gunfights, car chases and bombs a plenty, but there is also something else - a heart. I really liked the interaction between the two leads, I think it worked really well, and I loved the fact that the criminal and the cop were working together. The love story was terribly romantic, and even the &#39;purely for laughs&#39; role of the chief inspector was done quite nicely. As an introduction to Hong Kong cinema, I&#39;d say this was perfect. Running Out of Time rests somewhere in the middle of Johnny To&#39;s cannon, in the &quot;solid good&quot; category. As a crime thriller it&#39;s not terribly original or overwhelming and the action scenes will not blow you away but it has something else going for it. It&#39;s a Johnny To film after all, it has to.<br/><br/>Andy Lau has 72 hours to live. He decides to play a strange cat-and-mouse game with a hostage negotiator of the HK police, played by Lau Ching Wan. That&#39;s the plot in a nutshell. On top of that To piles layers of twists and turns that keep proceedings interesting throughout. It occasionally becomes too convoluted for its own sake but never lets it get the best of it. However, justJohnny To is about to hand over a slick and well-made crime flick (which, let&#39;s face it, are dime-a-dozen), he slips in bits and pieces that bring Running Out of Time alivea full emotional experience, providing the soul and heart to the well-oiled skeleton.<br/><br/>The concepts of synchronism and minimalism (staples in his work) are explored in great effect here. Always subtle, letting the images speak for themselves, giving them time to develop with long takes and slow tracking shots, exemplary cutting to the score, it&#39;s all here. A small love story in a bus between Andy Lau and a girl is among the highlights of the film and part of the &quot;heart&quot; I&#39;m talking about. So simple yet so powerful. Ditto for Lau&#39;s and Lau Ching Wan&#39;s car scenes and the bowling-room showdown.<br/><br/>However something stops me from claiming Running Out of Time is a masterpiece. To has all the ability and craftmanship down to a notch but he can also be too workmanlike or bland at times. When he&#39;s good, he&#39;s REAL good. There are even isolated moment of pure brilliance that are just TOO good for their own sake, leaving a bittersweet aftertaste for the rest of the movie. I&#39;m convinced that if he puts his heart to it, he can make a really great film. As it is, this is another one of his films that is flawed but enjoyable. Underneath the slick HK style, it&#39;s the black humour and heartfelt drama that makes this a compelling film. Worth watching, definitely.
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