Review | Film review: Helios, action thriller by Cold War directors
Helios is at its most entertaining when protagonists spout evocative one-liners on international relations, but relies on deafening action to temper its sheer silliness.
Starring: Nick Cheung Ka-fai, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Wang Xueqi, Chang Chen
Directors: Sunny Luk Kim-ching, Longman Leung Lok-man
Category: IIB (Cantonese, Putonghua, Korean)
moment in this action thriller is its final promise of a sequel. After a similar arrangement in their debut (2012), viewers of co-directors Sunny Luk Kim-ching and Longman Leung Lok-man's second film should brace themselves for another anticlimax.
opens to the discovery that DC8 — a mobile weapon of mass destruction developed in South Korea — was stolen by the titular master thief (Chang Chen, pictured with Janice Man Wing-shan) and is expected to change hands in Hong Kong.
See our interview with the film's directors
The head of a special police task force (Nick Cheung Ka-fai) in Hong Kong, meanwhile, is being advised by a physics professor (Jacky Cheung Hok-yau) and supported by a few Korean officers flown in for the occasion. A Chinese officer (Wang Xueqi) also turns up to classify the matter as one of national security.
Also reviewed: Sylvia Chang's Murmur of the Hearts
The film is at its most entertaining when protagonists spout evocative one-liners on international relations after DC8 is kept in Hong Kong by mainland authorities as a sort of diplomatic leverage. Often, they bluff the audience into accepting the gravity of the situation.
But it's a shame that most of the thrills stem from sketchy decision making. Here's a supposedly brainy drama in which one scholar is asked to make every major decision about a deadly weapon, and a dangerous criminal is escorted by having everyone else drive behind her.
Also reviewed: documentary Dior and I
Giving little screen time to the fabled DC8, ultimately plays like a political farce relying on deafening shoot-outs to temper its overwhelming silliness.
