Future social historians may read much into the new vitality of the cops-and-robbers genre on the eve of 1997. The Log and Big Bullet are two of the year's more satisfying commercial features, providing a sympathetic look at the world of law enforcement.
The realistic and humanistic approach of these films was heavily influenced by director Gordon Chan Ka-seung's Final Option. With a Chinese title that translates as 'heroic heart of the Flying Tigers', the celluloid portrait of the police's Special Duties Unit was a critical and box-office hit in 1994.
But Golden Harvest owns the rights to the Chinese title, hence Best of the Best 's designation as 'part two' despite no story connection to part one. This take does not come close to the overall quality of Final Option.
Best of the Best does not reinvent the genre, but for at least half of its nearly two-hour run it is an excellent example of mainstream Cantonese film-making.
Produced by Manfred Wong and directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung, the team behind the Young and Dangerous gangster films, it displays a degree of social responsibility lacking in those cartoonish epics.
The script, by Wong and Chau Ting, is strictly formula, detailing the training of an elite corps and the attendant conflicts. The corps is called 'best of the best' or BOB, which conveniently is also the name of the film company headed by the producer and director.
