Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Simon Yam
Directed by Yip Wai Shun
Action by Donnie Yen

With three of Hong Kong's top actors and some of the best fight sequences ever seen on film, this was definitely a good movie, but unfortunately not good enough for me to call perfect.

Donnie Yen is Ma, the "stylish, cool character that can kill you fifty different ways but also has a soft spot for the righteous" that he always plays. Simon Yam is Chan, the "grizzled cop who's been in the force for as long as history can remember and who gets the job done even if it means resorting to unconventional means" that he always plays. Sammo Hung is Wong Po, the "smug crime boss who mockingly never gets caught" that he refreshingly does not always play. Liu Kai Chi, Danny Summer, Ken Chang and Austin Wai portray Chan's crew, simple yet important characters in the whole scheme of things.

In his desire to bring down Wong Po, Chan has sent one of his men undercover into Wong Po's triad. This character later turns up dead in a field, and kicks off the action. Ma shows up soon after, as he is preparing to replace Chan, whom we find out early in the film has a cancerous brain tumor.

First of all, I don't know where people get the idea that in order to be a high-quality film, it has to be confusing, dramatic, and artsy-fartsy. Director and screenwriter Yip Wai Shun certainly fell into this trap when devising the opening of SPL. The first ten or so minutes of the film consist of a smattering of scenes that don't seem to have anything to do with eachother. It will take another ten or fifteen minutes of film and some pretty intense brain activity and discussion on the viewers' parts to finally figure out how those first few scenes connect and why things are going the way they are going at this point in time.

In terms of character development, there certainly could have been a little more "human interest" on the part of Ma and the four cops on Chan's crew. Not to say we need to turn this into a tearjerking drama, because that's the last thing I want, but you have to be able to care about these people because of who they show us they are. Don't simply have the dude tell us something about himself as a line of dialog out of the blue. A review I read had a problem with the lack of character development of Wu Jing's maniacal hitman. I am of the opposite opinion. He's a damn hitman who kills with no mercy. There is no character to develop, man! This lack of character development probably would be able to be easily resolved if the film was longer. It is beyond me why almost all Hong Kong productions are always around 90 minutes long. Somebody please tell them it is absolutely OK to break the 100 minute mark!

Aside from its shortcomings, this movie sells itself with the excellently realistic fight sequences. The characters fight like people probably would in real life (with the exception of Wu Jing's maniacal hitman), concerned less with showmanship than getting the job done. Sammo Hung is more rotund than he's ever been, yet he amazingly still gives Donnie Yen a run for his money, which I have no doubt would be the case in a real life brawl as well.

Ultimately, SPL made up for its weaknesses with great cinematography, intense action, and a full circle surprise at the end. It was definitely worth the money and the wait.