Cold War 寒戰

 Released Year: 2012

Directed by 陸劍青 Sunny Luk & 梁樂民Longman Leong

Casted by:

郭富城 Aaron Kwok as 劉傑輝 Sean Lau

梁家輝 Tony Leung as 李文彬 MB Lee

李治廷 Aarif Rahman Lee as 張國標 Billy Cheung

彭于晏 Eddie Peng as 李家俊 Joe Lee

林家棟 Gordon Lim as 鄺智立 Albert Kwong

楊采妮 Charlie Yeung as 梁紫薇 Phoenix Leung

安志杰 Andy On as 石米高 Michael Sek

錢嘉樂 Chin Ka Lok as 徐永基 Vincent Tsui

尹子維 Terence Yin as 杜文 Man Tu

劉德華 Andy Lau as 陸明華 Philip Luk

王敏德 Michael Fitzerald Wong as 曾向榮 York Tsang

 Story:

One midnight, a Hong Kong Police Force Emergency Unit (EU) van carrying advanced equipment and five police officers goes missing. As the police investigate the case, they became aware that the terrorists possess detailed knowledge of the police's procedures and have planned several steps ahead, even possibly breaching the secured police network. As the Commissioner is away, Deputy Commissioner M.B. Lee, plans and leads a rescue operation code-named "Cold War," and declares Hong Kong to go under a state of emergency.

After being repeatedly misled by the terrorists and failing to track them down, fellow Deputy Commissioner Sean Lau believes Lee is acting too rashly, due to one of the five abducted policemen being his own son, Joe Lee. After consulting with superintendent Vincent Tsui and Albert Kwang, who both believe Lee is taking measures too extreme, Lau relieves Lee of his command and assumes command of Operation Cold War.

Lau plans to negotiate with the terrorists while secretly tracking them to their hide-out. The terrorists asks Lau to prepare a ransom equal to the calculated value of the policemen and the EU van. As the police force prepare the cash, the terrorists call again and say they only want roughly half of it, and for Lau to personally deliver the money. At the request of the bank manager, Lau takes only enough for the ransom and have the rest delivered back to the bank. When Lau eventually arrives at the meeting location, he is ordered to stop the car immediately and throw the cash down a bridge, causing a traffic blockage. In the confusion, Lau is attacked by the terrorists, and superintendent Tsui was killed in action in the crossfire. The terrorists escape, while superintendent Kwang notifies Lau that the terrorists simultaneously intercepted the other half of the money that was supposed to be returned to the bank. However, the police force did successfully rescue the missing policemen at a different location.

Lau attempts to question the bank manager, but the manager was then killed by a car bomb. Superintendent Kwang investigates the bombing to track the bombers, but is instead led into a trap and killed with his team. Lau suspects that the terrorists were aided by insiders in the force, but before he can investigate any further, he is arrested by ICAC Officer Billy Cheung, who received leaked information from an anonymous source about Operation Cold War. Lau is interrogated by Cheung, who accuses him of poorly handling the rescue operation, leading to the loss of the ransom money which he secretly took for himself. Lau denies this, and the ICAC fail to find evidence against him. Cheung makes some further investigations and discovers that the police Commissioner will be stepping down in two years, and thus either Lee or Lau will receive a promotion. Lau has the support of the Security Secretary because of his skillful management of the police's finances. On the other hand, Lee rose through the ranks from Constable and has the support of the front-line officers including the CID. Cheung now suspects that Lee is trying to use the failure of Operation Cold War to ruin Lau's chance for promotion.

The ICAC eventually discover, based on forensic evidence, that Joe Lee was the mastermind behind the abduction of the EU van. Lau presents this information to Lee, and reveals that it was Lau himself that leaked information to the ICAC (who has the power to act independent to the police force), in order to borrow their resources to investigate the case, thus not alerting the insider. Lee confronts his son, who reveals that he planned this with other associates from the police force who wanted to see Lee rise to the position of Commissioner. Seeing that Joe is unrepentant and unwilling to reveal anymore, Lee reluctantly shoots and arrest him. The following day, Lee and the current Commissioner announce their plans to retire, nominates Lau as the next Commissioner, and congratulate Lau on his resourcefulness on solving the case.

The film ends with Lau receiving a mysterious phone call from the terrorists, who announces that they have kidnapped his wife, and wants Joe Lee released in return.

 L² Scored: 7/10

L² Comment:

I'm kinda out on the HK movie lately, its not because that I'm more focus on the Western movie, but HK movie is getting so much disappointing lately. As cold war 2 goes on the big screen this year, everyone is telling me how exciting the movie was, but it is linked with the first movie. So before I even want to watch the second movie, I need to watch this first. But as you know, I'm kinda lazy and in the end the movie was postponed till now lol

Overall the movie is quite ok, but its a bit similar like internal affairs which i feel that HK is totally out of any ideas. Tony Leung definitely delivered his best in this movie, so as Andy Lau even though he just came out as a guess appearance. Aaron Kwok is a bit not so good whenever the scene show of him with Tony Leung together; Charlie is as beautiful as always but seems useless in this movie....