This pitch-dark, formally pure policier is To’s most abstract film: a personal essay in the anxieties of masculinity, the dynamics of the homosocial group, the fear of facing chaos without recourse to violence. When Police Sergeant Lo Sa loses his gun in a dark alley, he enlists the aid of Inspector Ho, a brutal Police Tactical Unit squad leader whose remorseless recourse to brutality in the service of order is almost stomach-turning in its frankness. One anxious night brings together these protagonists in a seething Tsimshatsui (Kowloon’s southern tip) where rival gangs of Hong Kongers and even more fearsome mainlanders finally meet. (S. Kraicer)
