Accident?
Director Cheang Pou-soi was one of the best directors in Hong Kong until the Hong Kong movie industry fell into a coma. He likes gloom and madness. Accident starts and feels like the Final Destination movies, but without supernatural elements. We follow a small group of assassins, which makes murders look like accidents.
We never get to know the characters in the movie. We only get to see something that happened in the past when the wife of the leader dies. The leader, played by Louis Koo, becomes paranoid after a mission. He’s partially paranoid before this mission. But when something unexpected happens during the mission, the paranoia takes over. He thinks someone is out to kill him, and he stalks his last client, who’s acting strangely.
Accident is a very slow movie. It doesn’t have much dialog or events. The focus is on the character played by Loius Koo. We follow him when he and his team plan how to kill the victim, and when he becomes paranoid.
There’s a lot of sneaking, and there’s not much going on here. The ending is wonderful. It builds up to an accident, but this time the protagonist isn’t in control. Has the brain of the protagonist fried completely, or is there someone who plans to kill him? This is interesting, and it’s impressive how much they get out of so little if you look at the small universe in the movie.
This isn’t a movie for the average viewer. Accident is a slow movie. But the very end and how things are laid out is brilliant. Visually, you can’t complain. It smells so much of Johnnie To, which is no surprise when he’s the producer and this is a Milkyway Image production.
Louis Koo can be good when he doesn’t show a lot of emotion, and this was a period in his career I liked him as an actor. He’s good at playing an asshole. There’s something about his body language that few actors have. But then he got lazy, and now his role interpretations feel the same all the time. It seems he no longer has any talent as an actor. He acts in a lot of movies, and that also means that he doesn’t give a fish about his performance when he fails to make the characters he plays feel different from each other. Maybe it’s time to stop acting and let someone else take over? But I’m not sure who can take over because the Hong Kong movie industry is dead. He’s called one of the hardest working actors in Asia. I call him a lazy actor who doesn’t care about his profession anymore. The best actors take their time with the character they are going to play. There’s a reason that the best actors choose one or two roles a year. Look at Louis Koo, he’s in 5-6 movies a year! Look at the average rating on IMDB for the last five years, where he has had a leading role! Most of the movies are pure fish! He’s turning into Steven Seagal! Jesus Christ!
Accident is worth checking out. It feels original, which is something you rarely experience anymore. It’s a slow-burning movie, so be prepared for that.