2.5/5 stars

Why didn’t they just run away? It’s the question that will repeatedly plague the audiences for Robbery, which sees around a dozen characters from different walks of life slaughter each other while trapped inside a crime scene. A social allegory of sorts, this gratuitously gory hostage drama by Hong Kong playwright and theatre director Fire Lee Ka-wing (Love in Time) could have packed a stronger punch if it didn’t indulge in plot turns so incredulous, that they could only fit into a supernatural fantasy.

Loosely based on his first written play, Oldsters on Fire, Lee’s third feature film opens with the rant of 32-year-old slacker Ping (Derek Tsang Kwok-cheung), who lives in a cramped government flat with his discordant family. He sees no way out of his impoverished existence. Already numb to his surroundings – he is less concerned about a double suicide happening in front of him than the fact that the splash of blood has ruined his only expensive sweater – Ping takes up a job at a convenience store to pass the time.