Cheap Fulltime Killer (DVD) (Andy Lau, Takashi Sorimachi, Kelly Lin) (Ka-Fai Wai, Johnny To) Price

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Customer Reviews of Fulltime Killer

Starts out interesting and ends a little weak.
At first the film is very promising. However, towards the end it just fades. The movie paces itself nicely throughout the movie using John Woo's old style elements to accomplish beautiful screenplay, directing, and artful action. Somehow it just changes towards 3/4's way into the film. I feel the director just had a hardtime ending it and simply ended it very awkwardly. It's like he had a good idea and doesnt know how to finish it. The dialogue is really neat and the action is even more impressive utilizing John Woo's old style to give us a refreshing screen play that is gone in Woo's new style of film making as we can see when he arrived to America. John Woo's style has dimished with each passing film and at least this director brings back old memories.

Pros:
-nice screenplay
-interesting dialogue
-artful action
-great use of coreography and filming quality is great

Cons:
-as the film progressed the movie slows down
-muffled storyline, confusing plot
-strange use of languages make it hard to focus on the characters. The movie shifts from cantonese to english to chinese without reason. (the japanese language used by the characters has a point to the movie so I wont complain about its usage).

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Watch it only if you are a hardcore HK movie fan
Doesn't even come close to a John Woo, Ringo Lam or Tsui Hark film. Some interesting action sequences though - the opening is excellent. I found Andy Lau's acting a little over the top. Also, it seemed that every character was coincidentally related to another character in several ways. 2 rival assasins and one assasin's boss is the brother of the other assasin? A few of these I'll buy but there were way too many unexplained coincidences. I would have preferred a longer film that probed more info the relationships. Don't bother with this unless you are die hard HK fan - there are much better HK films out there.

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Not Bad Actioner, But Definitely NOT the Best Of Johnny To
Excuse me for giving only three stars for this film, for I know "Fulltime Killer" is, good as it is, NOT the best of Johnny To, a Hong Kong director whose intense style is not be missed. His best remains "Running Out of Time" (starring the same cool Andy Lau), or "The Mission," especially the latter one. See them first, and remember his name.

"Fulltime Killer" is in fact co-directed with Wai Ka Fai, but the subdued style is definitely that of Johnny To. The film traces the two free-lance killers, "O" (Takashi Sorimachi, popular Japanese actor), and Tok (Lau). O is the top dog of the killers, but Tok, confident of his professional skills, wants to bring him down in his own style. In between comes a female cleak working at a rental video store (beside the escalator which was shown in one famous Hong Kong film), Chin (Kelly Lin), and the determined policeman Lee (veteran Simon Yam).

The gun action of the film is an average one, but sadly, as the story lacks coherent developing, it is often hard to follow what is going on. Johhny To's cool style and oddball humor are not given much chance to be shown, and the result is curiously devoid of tension, even though the actions themselves are decetly done.

Some people might find the languages it uses slightly troublesome, for Andy Lau often speaks Japanese, which is very hard to understand (I am a Japanese, and watched it in the origiunal language). But more lamentable thing is the lack of charisma of Sorimachi as "O" whose one-dimentional performance as a killer with a heart lacks convincing power. And as for Andy Lau, he was much better in "Running Out of Time."

The film is a result of recent Hong Kong film industry, which tries to capitalize on the name of Japanese actors who are gaining popularity in Hong Kong. But I think the casting here has backfired. I do not say "Fulltime Killer" is bad. I only say you can get better ones from To, underrated Hong KOng filmmaker, and that is "The Mission" which you should see first.