In one of the most anticipated films of the year, director Dante Lam re-teams with his frequent lead, Nick Cheung. Here, Cheung plays Hon, a notorious and violent robber who is saved from death after a shootout via a blood transfusion from a policeman, Dave (Daniel Wu). Dave's actions not only do not sit well with his superiors, who wanted to let Hon die, but he begins to act strangely, eventually making the formerly meek officer seek justice by any means possible.

Dante Lam is a director known for stylish-looking films with great action scenes, and he fulfills that quotient here. The film's cinematography, lensed by Kenny Tse, echoes classic film noir. Though, since this is a Hong Kong movie, where the word "less" hardly enters the cinematic lexicon, the frame is awash with color, particularly blood-red as Dave begins to indulge his newfound psychotic tendencies.

Though this could not be construed as an action movie, what is presented here is very good. Coordinated by veteran Phillip Kwok, the shootouts are bloody fun to watch, and are punctuated by some amazing looking car stunts that rank among the best offered by any region in the world, even in comparison to the over the top nature of the Fast and Furious and Transporter franchises.

There is a genuinely unsettling nerve touched by some of the violent content, which will be off-putting to some, but will be appreciated by fans of the hard-edged output of the "golden age" of Hong Kong cinema, a time where film-makers were not held tight to their Mainland financier's leashes and forced to sanitize their output to appease government censors.

It's this sort of unrestrained chutzpah, along with solid performances from Daniel Wu and Nick Cheung, that elevate the film as a whole above its' disjointed story and make this a recent Hong Kong release worth watching, especially if you are fortunate enough to be living in one of the American or Canadian cities China Lion is doing a theatrical run for at the same time as its' Hong Kong premiere, which marks a first in East/West film production.

RATING: 7