I rented this on DVD yesterday and did not realize it was a "character study" type of movie, so I struggled to watch about an hour of it before hitting the Stop button.Even with a character study theme, I just could not get into this film at all. Perhaps it was my mood in wanting to watch something else, or maybe I had other expectations, but setting that aside, I tried my best to move on to finish watching, but gave up. The actors played their roles well, but the global combination did not come together to keep my interest. About the only interesting thing was the sergeant's gun being stolen and he hurried to buy another one, and spray painted it black to appear as police issue. I think this movie should have been entitled, "Who Stole the Sergeant's Gun?" Scenes were well done but putting them together I once again felt robbed for anything cohesive to keep me viewing.Since I didn't finish watching it I'd say there is some merit to renting this film ... maybe. To me, it was a waste of good viewing effort and time. I'll leave it up to you to try it, but it's not one I'd strongly recommend.

PTU is a movie that looks very good, but completely lacks content. The entire movie takes place at night in a deserted Hong Kong. I say "deserted" because the streets are almost completely void of people. A car may occasionally pass by and a person or two might be seen in the background, but that's about it. The city is illuminated only by the harsh glow of street lights, with everything else shrouded in darkness. These qualities give the movie a slightly surreal feel, as if it took place in some kind of parallel universe of its own. I guess you could say that the movie is minimalistic, in many ways. There's not much music, dialogue is sparse and the camera doesn't do any neat tricks.The story: I have no idea. A police detective loses his sidearm, and the cops go looking for it. That's about all I can say, because I was unable to figure out what was going on. Lots of phone calls are made, meetings are arranged, and there's some kind of struggle between two gangs, and the police may or may not be somehow involved. There are some subplots (or something) that don't seem to be connected to anything. Maybe it's just my fault, but I didn't get it. The group of police officers that the movie follows seem to be corrupt. The detective who loses his weapon seems to be corrupt too. There's also another detective who is investigating something and is suspicious of the first detective for some reason, and she could be corrupt too, but who knows. She's the only interesting character in the movie.PTU has some bad problems with pacing. At 40 minutes into the movie, it felt like the story was still being set up and the characters introduced. There are many slow scenes where nothing really happens, such as the one where the cops climb a staircase for 5 minutes. Maybe the director tried to do things like Takeshi Kitano, but failed. The ending wraps things up but holds no meaning since I had no idea what was going on.At least it looks good. The only other Johnny To movie that I've seen is Fulltime Killer, and it didn't impress me either.

I just finished watching the import dvd version of this film. A great Crime Drama. Simon Yam proves once again that his screeen presence is amazing. Check out the scene in the video game hall when a young Triad wannabe tries to cop a tough guy display towards Simon. Guess who wins? The movie flows very much like a Docu-Drama. The P.T.U. (Police Tactical Unit) is very much like the "beat cops" division. However, they all patrol in units of six. Like a platoon. You can feel the grit of the downtown streets of Hong Kong. This is one film to see. Also directed by Johnnie To: The Mission, Fulltime Killer. Both have Simon Yam. Another cool film about the P.T.U. is Big Bullet starring Lau Ching Wan and Anthony Wong Chau-sang.

I saw a screening of PTU at UCLA tonight, with the director (and his translator) in attendance. I found the film to be a bit slow in spots, but I was willing to go along with the deliberate pace and slow burn of the film. I think in this country we're way too spoiled on visual chaos, with most studio films thrusting a car chase or a slapstick joke in our face every two minutes or so. It doesn't have to be that way. The film was shot beautifully and there is a quiet cool about the whole thing, very reminiscent of a Lee Marvin vibe as someone else here pointed out.To did stay to answer questions after the movie, and although this did not alter my opinion of the film it did make me appreciate it even more. It was shot over the course of two years, while he would stop to make other commercial films; some actors gain or lose weight on screen! The budget only came out to $400k U.S. Several of the actors were actually crew people from his other films. One person asked him how he made his cinematography choices (i.e. the constant pools of light) and he laughed and said it was strictly budgetary; they couldn't afford to dress every set and they only had a few overhead lights, so voila! I think the limitations of what they had to work with only make the film stronger, much like Jaws is a better movie because the shark always broke down.