Sun cheung sau (2009)

Director:

Dante Lam

Writer:

Wai Lun Ng (written by)

Release Date:

9 April 2009 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

They are the crème de la crème. They can lock a target from 500m away.

Plot:

A police sniper teams up with a hot-headed rookie to take down his former friend and teammate, who is exacting revenge on the police force. |

Plot Keywords:

Police | Sniper | Revenge | Police Officer Stabbed In The Leg | Police Officer Killed

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Richie Ren	...	Hartman (Fang Keming)
Xiaoming Huang	...	Lincoln (Jing / Ching)
Edison Chen	...	OJ (Chen Xinwei)
Bowie Lam	...	Shane (Shan Ge)
Kai Chi Liu	...	Big Head (Er Ge)
Jack Kao	...	Tao
Wilfred Lau	...	Iceman
Mango Wong	...	Crystal
Michelle Ye	...	Mon
Charmaine Fong	...	Kit
Patrick Tang	...	Chung
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lawrence Ah Mon	...	Police Superintendent
Anthony Carpio	...	Tao's underling
Shek Chan	...	Thug in hut
Wai Hung Chan	...	Senior Superintendent
Wai Ling Chan	...	Jenny
Chi-Sing Cheung	...	Police Superintendent
Kai Wai Chun	...	Hostage
Ming-Hiu Heung	...	Sniper
Sam Kai-Sen Huang	...	Police wagon carjacker #1
Andy Kwok	...	Sniper
Chi Tai Lam	...	Quinn
Gregory Lam Nag	...	Commissioner of Police
Roderick Lam	...	Sniper
Hin Yu Lau	...	Sniper
Wai Fung Mak	...	Sniper
Sze Man Man	...	Restaurant hostage
Pak Kee Mau	...	Sniper
Yuen-Leung Poon	...	Police Superintendent
Tung So	...	Police wagon carjacker #2
Chung Tak Suen	...	Sniper
Wei Tung	...	OJ's dad
Luk Man Wai	...	Sniper
Fei Chin Wong	...	Sniper

Also Known As:

The Sniper (International: English title) (Singapore: English title)
Godly Gunslingers (Hong Kong: English title) (literal title)
Shen qiang shou (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Sniper (Hong Kong: English title) (short title)

Runtime:

Germany:90 min (European Film Market)

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese | English | Hokkien

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIB | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:MA (2009)

Company:

Media Asia Films

HK Neo Reviews: The Sniper

Tagline: More like a video game than an actual movie… Review by Neo: For whatever reason, The Sniper does not seem like a movie, but rather like a kid playing the latest shooting video game. The effect certainly oozed everything that is cool and nothing else. Maybe it is because of the producer cutting and chopping every possible scenes of the notorious Edison Chen, The Sniper just never seems to care about the characters or the story for that matter. The film is ultimately uneven, makes next to no sense and rather like a mindless action flick, with zero substance.

The movie is basically about sniper cops fighting criminals. Richie Ren is a top sniper cop and somehow recruits Edison Chen after witnessing his snipering abilities. Huang Xiaoming used to be the very best sniper cop, but after an accidental killing in an hostage situation, Huang is jailed and subsequently dismissed from the force. As with all routine and cliché movies goes, Huang ends up moving on to the dark side and help the criminals to hunt down sniper cops...

Not a clever or intriguing story, especially one would expect more from the director of Beast Cops and Beast Stalker. Usually, it is safe to say that Dante Lam likes to focus on characters and a look at Anthony Wong, award winning display in Beast Cops and Nick Cheung in Beast Stalker, already provides adequate evidence. Here, director Lam forgets the need of a story, partly due to the relentless cutting of most of Edison's scenes. Unfortunately, the movie suffers and by the final showdown, there is no character for the audience to care about and no emotions to be felt by the awaiting audience.

Firstly the performance of Edison Chen is quite frankly uninteresting, bland and quite crap. It is perhaps a blessing in disguise for the cinema of Hong Kong to lose such a talentless actor. It goes without saying that Edison can't act and despite having praised his abilities to play a dog in Dog Bite Dog, there is no doubt within my mind that Edison still cannot act and thinks he is cool, when obviously he is not. Maybe, he can play another dog or mentally disturbed character, if he wants to prove me wrong. While cutting his scenes, makes the film uneven or even raising questions of making no senses, at the end of the day, the film is far better without Edison, than with it. So my advice to him, is stay away from Hong Kong for the better.

Moving on to Richie Ren, it's been a while since Richie last made a decent movie with a decent enough role. Richie is a decent actor with decent presence, but it's been 3 yrs since Johnnie To's Exiled and to see him go further and further away from reaching his potential in useless flicks like Contract Lover and The Sniper, it is just frustrating. Sure, he has enough presence to carry the flick, but career-wise, Richie isn't heading the correct direction. As for Huang Xiao-Ming, his overacting is more frustrating to endure and quite frankly, his villainous turn fails to convince. The much missed Mango Wong (last seen at the cinemas with Ghost Office/ Conman 2002), is a welcome addition and instil some sparks in an otherwise rather dull flick with even duller characters.

All in all, The Sniper is simply a critical failure and a commercial failure. Whatever, Dante Lam's intention is, it will probably remain unclear. Maybe he turned into his Heat Team (2004) mode, but even that was funny and cool at the same time. Maybe he turned his head back in place, after this and churned out Beast Stalker. Needless to say, the sniper shooting is cool to watch, Richie Ren is cool dude and so is Huang Xiao Ming to a degree and of course, Edison is just plain crap. The main thing is that this is a movie, but it never seems to run like one. Like the failure of mindless action flicks in Hollywood, for example, Ballistic - Ecks vs. Sever. While The Sniper never seem to reach that height of disappointment, but when you are aiming for a target as low as this, the only loser that comes out of this is ultimately the paying public. For the last time, and hopefully will be, the film is a cool and bad, but nothing can be worst than Edison, himself … (Neo 2009)

I rate it 3/10