A Witness Out of the Blue

Master robber Wong (Louis Koo) pulls off a big jewelry heist, but the bag of loot disappears and his gang members start being picked off one by one. He's framed for murder during the heist and is determined to find the real killers and avenge his friends. Some months later, he's hiding out in an old people's home run by Joy (Jessica Hester Hsuan), a partially blind, partially greedy but also humane woman, while Detective Lam (Louis Cheung) is trying to track him down, while also wondering if perhaps his own superior officer, Senior Inspector Yip, might be somehow involved. And his only lead is the parrot found at a murder site, a parrot who could, perhaps, say who the killer really is....

This is a cat-and-mouse (or, cat-and-bird) story in which the viewer is never entirely certain who the bad guys are and who the good guys are; they seem quite interchangeable for a variety of reasons. There's a fair number of chases, exchanges of gunfire and the odd bombing or two, but it's actually not all that violent comparatively speaking, and the characters are suitably moody, dangerous, mysterious and, occasionally, almost slapstick. Also, periodically the characters speak English (mainly to say "sorry" or "yes, sir") while the subtitles tell us just that, which is a little weird but endearing. Entertaining, overall.

Three months after a robbery in a jewellery store where many innocents suffered badly, one of the criminal is found dead while the mastermind criminal (Louis Koo) becomes the prime suspect after the loot gets disappeared n the only witness is a talking parrot.

The film moves at a steady pace with lots of action, suspense, gun shootings, chase sequence n nice locations.

The direction is very good n the editing crispy. After viewing this film I looked up in Google to find classes in my local area to learn Mandarin language as I found the subtitles distracting.

The film's whodunnit is a bit similar to Agatha Christie's ........ I dont want to spoil the fun.

Having seen Louis Koo's The White Storm 1 n 2 recently n owning dvds of his films Rob-b-hood n Flashpoint, I kinda started becoming his fan.

Yes, parrot is the main witness that is revealed in the very first scene of the movie and it unfolds at the end. between the beginning and ending, there is some actions, sentiments with some confusion and conclusions. What You expect? action, actually in that aspect, You won't get much action here, because main protagonist is animal-bird lover and not a macho man. His character is like forest gump, and He is assigned to nab the robbers or criminals. Audience Can easily figure out He couldn't move a single move as his character is portrayed like that. so as movie proceeds, the antagonist takes the action, and finally at the climax, it reveals the real criminals. Until then , some tom n Jerry show goes on in serious manner

The good? Frenetic action, blood spurts, many twists and turns. There was no shortage of violence for all you gore hounds. Also, they kept any crocodile tears behaviour from characters to a pleasing minimum. Generally, acting was fine as well as cinematography and editing.

The bad? Too much sappy background music and sloppy direction. There were simply preposterous shenanigans that allowed for the continuation of the movie but, in real life, made no sense. And again, like in so many Asian films, the police officers come off as Keystone Cops - clumsy, weak, imbeciles in the flesh. Those sad tropes really hurt this otherwise good film.