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Psychedelic Cop

2002

Director: Bosco Lam

Stars: Danny Lee, Lai Yiu Cheng, Daivd Lee, Ken Chung, Sharon Chan, Claire Liu

This is sort of an unusual take on the normal Danny Lee cop movie. He plays his normal hard-ass self, but the twist here is that one of the people in his squad (Lai Yiu Cheng) goes nuts when he sees an ambulance siren, dons a ninja-type suit, and begins slashing up Triads. This might have been more interesting stuff, but since the viewer knows who the "killer in mask" (as the subs call him) is, there's no suspense, and the weak attempts to create it slow the movie down. Also, there is a pretty severe lack of action -- probably due to the low budget. The movie could have used another couple of gunfights, or at the very least, some more blood and guts.

Getting back to the low budget, the most apparent indicator of it is the fact that the film was shot on digital video. I don't normally like the look of DV, and Psychedelic Cop didn't change my opinion. It might be okay for talky drama, but in a cop movie, it just looks cheap -- your average episode of "NYPD Blue" has better production values than this. Seriously, is there any sort of audience for this kind of stuff? There have been a very few instances (like El Mariachi, Evil Dead and Clerks) where a movie made for thousands has made millions. But, come on, let's get serious here. In a cop action/drama, the movie has to look at least halfway decent for the audience to take it seriously, and in this regard, Psychedelic Cop fails worse than a football player with ADD in math class.

To his credit, Bosco Lam tries to do what he can with the medium. There are some interesting attempts at actual cinematography, the acting is well-done (if a bit amateurish), and the action bits (helmed by Hong Kong action veteran Bruce Law) have glimmers of hope, if only for a few (too brief) moments. Ultimately, though, Psychedelic Cop can't escape its' low-budget trappings, and as such, is yet another fairly anonymous Danny Lee cop movie that fans will probably enjoy, but more casual viewers will probably want to save for the proverbial rainy day.

RATING: 6

A review for the DVD of this movie can be found here

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