Film Name: 谈判 / 王牌对王牌 / Crisis Negotiators
A relatively standard Hong Kong film that doesn’t disappoint or surprise very much.
Lots of familiar faces, from the main characters to the supporting ones. The story is not about cops and robbers, it’s sort of an internal anti-corruption fight within the police department, which is a nice new point of view. I’m not a seasoned film fan, so I won’t make any professional judgement. As an ordinary viewer, I care more about the story itself.
In the beginning, the film spends more than five minutes presenting a case from three years ago, and it is a good example of how Tse, a negotiator, was disappointed with the police department’s ‘hostage safety’ approach to justice, so much so that he left (retired?) his job to become a social worker. After that, it jumps directly to three years later, Zhuo was framed to find out the real murderer to avenge his brother, as a negotiator, but escaped from prison to take hostages and confront all the police, knowing that there is a mole, so he asked to negotiate with Xie, who has already left the force, and in the process of negotiation, Xie was blocked by the police department’s ‘justice’, and so he helped Zhuo to escape and find the evidence.
In my opinion, the whole story is not very thrilling or reversed, the development of the plot is predictable to the audience, and is presented in a relatively straightforward manner. For the sake of audience’s better viewing experience, there are quite a lot of contrasting sequences designed to increase the interest and watchability. For me, this point is really well done, otherwise I really would have found the film rather dry and bland.
The only thing that touched me a little bit in the whole film is that Xie ran out of the police station while contacting Zhuo who decided to help him, and this moment really felt Xie’s passionate justice and sincerity, which is very different from the police station’s ice-cold ‘justice and truthfulness’, and at this moment, I really understood the reason why Xie didn’t want to continue to work as a negotiator, and that he is not a tool person under the police station. He is not a tool of the police department under the judicial process, but an ordinary person with flesh and blood, feelings and justice. This episode should be the highlight of the film for me. In contrast to this episode, the ending in which the boss is exposed and killed seems sloppy. The boss knows that there are two people on the other side, and he knows that the other side has recorded evidence in his hand, so why didn’t he think that his words would be recorded and disseminated as well? It’s a sudden feeling of wanting to get a box of rice when you directly sign your identity and kill someone.
In short, for me, the story is complete, but not exciting enough, there are highlights, but there are no surprises to my regret.
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