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When chasing and ultimately capturing criminal Cheung, officer Tong
(Nicholas Tse) accidently shoots a little girl that was in the trunk of
one of Cheung's getaway cars, and whom Tong simply couldn't know about.
Even though nobody puts the blame for the girl's death on Tong, and he
himself knows it was an accident, he is plagued by guilt ever since, so
much so that he makes friends with the girl's little sister Ling (Wong
Suet-yin) in an attempt to atone for his sin. The dead girl and Ling's
mother Ann (Zhang Jingchu) though is the district attorney trying to get
Cheung convicted, and thus Cheung has one of his hitmen, Hung (Nick
Cheung), kidnap Ling, to force Ann to destroy critical evidence this way.
Ann is told to not call the police, but Tong, who is still on leave after
the accident, was actually on scene when the kidnapping happened, and now
he sees saving the girl as a way of redeeming himself. Hung initially
seems like an emotionless monster, but he isn't, he takes loving care of
his paralyzed wife whom he loves more than anything, but he is so burdened
with debt - also because of his wife's treatment - that he has to accept
every job he can get - and the fact that he's gradually losing his
eyesight keeps him from being too picky. Also, the longer he keeps Ling
hostage, the more she grows on him. With Cheung's trial approaching
quickly, Tong makes more and more efforts to track down the girl, and
after several chases and shootouts with Hung, he actually frees her out of
his clutches and calls Ann witht he good news just before she can destroy
the evidence - and thus she sees to it that Cheung is convicted. Thing is
that Ling is not in the clear yet, and Hung manages to overpower Tong once
again - but when it comes to it, he just cannot kill the girl ... which is
when she accidently gets buried beneath tons of sand, without his doing.
Tong knocks out Hung and manages to save the child against all odds. When
Hung comes to, he realizes he's now completely blind, and when he
stumbles, he injures himself so badly he might not survive it - and thus
he asks Tong to take him to his wife to spend his final minutes with her.
And only now it is revealed that during the tragic chase at the beginning
of the movie, in which Ann's daughter was killed and Cheung was arrested,
Hung's car was involved as well by mere coincidence, and the resulting
accident paralyzed his wife and slowly took away his eyesight. Even
if the film might sound terribly constructed in writing (with every
tragedy evolving in the film being traced back to one single incident at
its beginning), the whole thing works terribly well on-screen, as it is at
once an excellently paced mix of action and suspense, but on the other
hand presents the viewer with an unusual and involving story and a set of
extremely well fleshed out characters which are all far to ambivalent to
fall into simple good-and-evil categories. Add to that a subtle yet
effective directorial effort and a very competent cast, and you've got a
great movie!
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