User Reviews

Cheung Wah (Anddy Lau) has been diagnosed with cancer and given four weeks to live. One night, as he eats at a diner, he takes notice of the way that Inspector Ho Sheung-sang handles a bank robbery. Impressed, he decides to play a game against the cop, giving him 72 hours to catch him for a series of increasingly daring crimes. Cheung will admit defeat if Ho can take him to the police station before three days are over.

Generally, Hong Kong cop movies are so deadly serious. This has some moments of that, as the disease killing Cheung is no joking matter. But by the end of the film, the two men have somehow earned each other's respect, even if Cheung keeps outsmarting his police adversary the whole way to the very end.

Lau is an incredibly popular actor but rarely gets any respect. He's a populist favorite, but this is the movie that finally won him Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards. From stealing diamonds to repeatedly faking his demise, he's the heart of this film.

The reason Johnnie To is a big-name filmmaker in the West seems to be because his pluses outweigh his minuses. I'm not sure if he ever made a movie that really makes sense, or at least wasn't hard to follow, but he has so much directorial flair and talent for subtle comedy that the viewer is usually just glad to be along for the ride.

He had to have his off-days, and I'm afraid "Running Out of Time" may be one of them. It's still stylish and entertaining, with amusing moments, but in this case the plot is just incomprehensible. You can follow it at first, but in the second half it just runs away from you in several different directions at once and I could not keep up.

I'll try to tell you the plot as I remember it, and then include the bits I had to read about online to learn about: Ho (played by To regular Lau Ching-wan) a skilled hostage negotiator, is somehow noticed by Cheung (Andy Lau), a man who has a terminal illness and only days to live. He plays a game with Ho, stringing him along through complicated and unrealistic means.

Meanwhile, a mysterious bald man is having a diamond appraised by an old man. He kills some American gangsters.

The plot... thickens. It is a better descriptor to say that it shatters. I really lost the plot after this; all I really remember is that Cheung disguises himself as the bald guy in one scene (at least I think it was him) and dresses up as a woman, possibly in the same scene? I don't know. I really lost the plot at this point.

I had to read online that Cheung's entire scheme was about taking revenge on the mafia, and impersonating his dad. This doesn't really seem to dovetail with some of his other actions in the movie, such as shooting randomly out the window of a moving car.

And what was the point of his 'game' he played with Ho? Why not just level with him at the outset, since the other man couldn't turn him down? Right?...

I enjoyed this one, but felt it was just too confusing to recommend. To's "The Mission" and "The Longest Nite" are both superior.

This viewer must admit that he's a relative newcomer to Hong Kong cinema but this interesting and gripping thriller from director Johnnie To has left him wanting to see more. It's stylish, humorous, even poignant at times. It's not wall to wall action, but it doesn't need to be. It's also not particularly violent. The twisty script does keep one watching, intrigued at finding out just how things will develop from scene to scene. Also, the solid performances by the leads, Andy Lau and Ching Wan Lau, help a great deal.

Andy Lau plays Peter Cheung, a dying young man who learns that he has just weeks to live. So what he decides to do with his time left on Earth is play an elaborate "game", which ends up involving intrepid hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang (Ching Wan Lau) and the local mafia, led by Baldy (Waise Lee). What really gets the audience hooked is wondering just what the hell Peters' motivation is and what he hopes to gain from the whole experience.

The action, when it does take place, is well orchestrated, and director To does a good job at keeping a reasonable level of tension throughout his film. The pacing and editing are efficient enough at creating a story with a fairly brief running time of 93 minutes. In addition to the engaging lead performances, those who leave an impression are Shiu Hung Hui as comedy relief character Chief Inspector Wong Kai-Fat, who is believed by Ho to be inefficient and cowardly, and lovely ladies YoYo Mung and Ruby Wong.

The opening is pretty chilling and sobering, and the ending is quite satisfactory.

Overall, this is good fun.

Eight out of 10.

A dieing crime wants to get back the jewelry and thus to involve a cop to get it from the gangster. The whole storyline is good and reasonable. The competition between them is good, and the small introduction of the beautiful gal is also good. Like the ending much, is he dead?

... is ultimately ruined by a totally stupid, cheesy and unnecessary homophobic subplot, first, when one of the colleagues of the inspector tells him in the car 'Everyone at work thinks you're gay' and later on, how the chief of police is portrayed, they could as well have made a complete screaming and gesticulating drag-queen out of him.

This is what really irritated me to the highest degree and gave me want to throw up, because otherwise, and even later on, Johnnie To's direction and handling of the plot was excellent, the story was involving, even moving to a certain degree and the action extremely well- handled.

Moreover, that aforementioned subplot is completely useless, because it definitely does not contribute to the story, and is totally OUT OF CONTEXT for what affects the SUBJECT MATTER of the film. Those scenes should have been deleted.

I am otherwise definitely a great admirer of Johnnie To's films, and I do not put the blame on him for this obnoxious element.

However, when I checked who the writers of the film were, I found out that there were two French screenwriters and only one Chinese So I suddenly said to myself that it was definitely not surprising. So my suggestion would be that these two french bastards stop polluting Hong Kong cinema with filthy and disgusting Western clichés!!! As I said before, without this disgusting subplot, i would have given a 10 tho this film because both Ching Wan Lau's and Andy Lau's performances are perfect, and the plot is otherwise almost flawless.

I substance this is what drove me to give this film a 1, a thing I deeply regret, but unfortunately, there are, however, things I do not tolerate, and think (but this is a personal opinion) should not be so easily overlooked.