Oh, joyous day! It's the return of Edison Chen! Well, not really. The Sniper was scheduled to come out around a year ago, but was shelved after the whole cell phone nudie pictures scandal. But it's probably a good thing that Edison's still hiding out in Canada, because his fans (if he has any left) would probably want their money back after checking this snoozer out.

The basic setup of the movie has Edison playing OJ, a rookie cop who is brought in by Hartman (Richie Ren) to join the sniper team of SDU (Special Duties Unit, basically Hong Kong's version of SWAT). OJ becomes one of the police force's top marksmen, and his skills start to come in handy when a former member of the team, Lincoln (Huang Xiao-Ming), starts looking for revenge against the cops after being released from prison.

Even with Edison Chen's sometimes negligible acting skills, The Sniper has the makings of a solid thriller. Unfortunately, director Dante Lam just tries way too hard, and the movie becomes very overblown as a result. There's so many gimmicks used here that everything comes off as hollow. Do we really need to constantly see the bullet's POV? Does every dramatic scene need to be accompanied by a rainstorm? And does the SDU sniper team really spend all of their training time shirtless and greased up?

Supposedly, The Sniper was fairly heavily re-edited before its' release in order to de-emphasize Edison's role and screen time. This can at least partially explain the disjointed feeling the story gives, if not totally excuse it. But seeing this product in its' current form, one can't help but wonder that even if Edison had delivered an Oscar-caliber performance, it wouldn't have saved The Sniper from being just another one in the ever-growing list of exceedingly mediocre and disappointing modern releases from Hong Kong studios.

RATING: 4