Sergeant Tong Fei is a Hong Kong police officer and, as the story starts, he and his team are planning to arrest a senior gangster, Cheung Yat-tung. Unfortunately Cheung manages to escape; Tong and his colleague Sun give chase but it ends in tragedy; there is a car crash after which Cheung and his men steal a woman's car, Tong opens fire and the car crashes. When he gets to the car he finds Cheung seriously injured and blood dripping from the boot; he opens it and sees that there is a young girl inside… mortally wounded by the shots he fired into the car.A few months later Cheung wakes from his coma and the chief prosecutor wants him to be tried as soon as possible. There is a complication though; the woman's whose daughter was killed is the lawyer who will be leading the prosecution and Cheung has ordered the kidnap of her other daughter to force her to destroy the one piece of conclusive evidence against him. She is told not to tell the police but Tong was present when the girl was snatched so determines to save her before she is seriously harmed.When I picked up this film I knew almost nothing about it, just the blurb on the back of the DVD box, so assumed it might be exciting over-the-top action like many of the Hong Kong cop films I'd seen before… it does have plenty of moments of excitement and is very tense for most of its run-time but if you are expecting to see our hero dealing with hordes of bad guys you might be disappointed… if however you like the idea of a hero who is mostly acting alone searching for a single foe interesting then this might be the film for you. Nicholas Tse does a fine job as Tong and Nick Cheung impresses as his target; the killer hired by Cheung to kidnap the girl. This character could easily have been a pantomime villain but his back story, which we don't fully learn about till the end, makes him more human. The action scenes are pretty good; especially the car crash which is top notch. If this was a Hollywood film I'd have been sure that the kidnapped girl would be rescued but here I wasn't so sure and more than once thought something really bad could happen to her… this concern made things incredibly tense at times. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a good tense cop-thriller.These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles.

While writers and directors are well known for using other people's ideas and techniques, there is no greater flattery than direct copying. It is said that the remake of Psycho in 1998 was done shot for shot, for example; yet that effort garners barely 4.5 here at IMDb, a losing score for me to watch.Beast Stalker is not a remake of anything, yet it takes a key ingredient from Amores Perros (2000) – an horrific car crash – that sets the scene for the subsequent action and reaction amongst and between the players. As with Amores Perros, without the crash – a visceral metaphor for the ways in which people interact and impact upon each other in daily life – there would be no plot and no movie called Beast Stalker.That plot circles around four players, essentially: Sergeant Tong Fe (Nicholas Tse), a tough, go-getter cop who rules his team with an iron will; Ann Gao (Jingchu Zhang), a government prosecutor determined to bring a top criminal to justice for murder during an armed robbery; her daughter, Ling (Suet-yin Wong) who is kidnapped to force Ann to falsify crucial evidence against the top criminal; and Hung King (Nick Cheung), presumably the 'beast' of the story and kidnapper of cute little Ling.The story really begins when Tong Fe, three months after the car crash, is at the school from which Ling is kidnapped and as Ann arrives to pick her up. Hung King gets away with the girl, and Tong Fe promises Ann that he will find Ling. The hunt is on...but time is of the essence: the trial of the bank robber/murderer is in 24 hours.For reasons that are best explained in the movie, Tong Fe decides to act alone. A lucky break allows him to narrow his search to a specific set of cramped apartments which he begins to scrutinize and search in a variety of ways; and during which, he is eventually assisted by a couple of his police colleagues and a plucky Ling who is able to get location information out by cell phone to Tong Fe and her mother. As night falls, Tong Fe zeros in on an apartment brilliantly lit by a giant, red neon advertising light, and when he spots Ling through a window, he knows he'll be able to keep his promise to Ann. Or so he thinks.The final act that brings closure for the players I'll leave you to enjoy without spoiling it. Suffice to say the suspense, action and excitement are well worth your time, and are as good as it gets. Better yet, the epilogue is, absolutely, emotional dynamite; so don't miss it.Technically, the production is brilliant: well paced and well photographed, although it suffers from too many, repetitive zoom shots; but the editing is stunning in parts, particularly the slo-mo action in the crash. If you've seen some of the slo-mo explosions in The Hurt Locker (2008), you know what I mean. Coupled with appropriate flashbacks to fill in various back-stories, the entire filmic experience is well-structured and easy to follow.Finally, though, a word about the title: considering the overall thematic thrust – personal redemption – the title is, I think, misleading at best. Hung King, as the main antagonist, has unselfish and even laudable motivations that drive him to commit a terrible criminal act. And likewise, none of the protagonists – Tong Fe and Ann Gao, particularly – are squeaky clean, either. Moreover, as we all know, given appropriate stimulus and context, anybody can perform a heinous crime, offensively or defensively. All of which raises an age-old question: does the end always justify the means? Think on that when you see this one and especially when you get to the epilogue.Give this offering a good eight out of ten.Recommended for all, except young kiddies (too much violence).January 3, 2013

Tagline: Dante Lam is back in form… Review by Neo: Ever since directing Beast Cop, Dante Lam seems to have gone brainless, but with exactly a decade onwards, Lam is finally delivering in Beast Stalker. Although the material does not bombard anything about freshness, there is no reason to be negative, as there are plenty of moments of reasonable excitement to make it one of the better lights of 2008 HK Cinema. While Beast Stalker is by all means dark, it is also lighter than Beast Cops, especially when taken into account of the somewhat redeeming finale. A good film by all means, but on the scale of Lam's best efforts (Neo mentioning Beast Cop for X number of times), it pales. Luckily, the above is more of a positive comment than negative, as any film worthy of comparison with the aforementioned flick cannot be too bad.Even the current reviewer is annoyed by how many times, Neo have somewhat mentioned the word, Beast Cop. For god sake, this is not a promotional fest of former great movies, but rather looking at the future of HK cinema, with a view of the past. Years, ago back in Tiramisu, Nicholas Tse portrayed himself as a somewhat capable actor and from there, he has gone from worst to bad. Luckily, Tse has finally come of age and the result is showing in a somewhat pleasing display of serious acting chops. Still, there are a lot of cons that would require mentioning, like moments of Tse being angry or frustrated comes of more laughable than convincing. Without being a pessimist there is a lot to cheer about Tse's latest display and Neo can safely claim it as one of his best display since Goddess of Mercy.There is no question that Nick Cheung is one heck of an actor and his steer away from comedy is certainly one of the best career moves for Cheung. It has been noted, that Neo first realise his potential as a serious actor way back in 1998, when he was actively involved in TVB. His role as a good guy turned villain was menacing and in recent years, Cheung has shown that Neo was right about him. Here, his villainous turn is by no means the typical carbon copy, but rather multi-dimensional and the result is menacing, interesting and absolutely captivating. Cheung has come a long way and perhaps award recognition is just around the corner.There is a saying when all actors are in their best form, the film usually works. Well, to be honest, there is no such saying, but it does rings quite true. Luckily, good things usually come in three and surely one of the better actresses in recent years, Zhang Jing Chu (The Protégé), can do no wrong. After Neo acclaiming her as Best Actress for her immensely scene stealing role as a junkie mother in Protégé, Zhang does not disappoint and she handles her role with ease, While by no means on the same class as her performance in Protégé, it is still more than adequate enough to allow the audience to relate to her character. An actress to watch in years to come and the scene when she realise she has indirectly caused the death of her own child is just captivating to endure.Director Dante Lam loves brutal straight forward, fist to fist fights and he makes good use of this to further enhance the realism of the work. Beast Stalker works because; Dante Lam tries hard to focus on the characters and allows them to flourish. All in all, Beast Stalker is suitably dark, filled with three capable performances and a redeeming finale to round it out. While it is true that the film falls short of reaching the dazzling heights in Beast Cop, it is great news to announce that director Lam is back to what he does best and finally approaching the sort of form that seem to have eluded from his wane, for the last decade. Basically, cutting all the above crap, it really just requires the following line: a film that Neo recommends viewing … (Neo 2009) I rate it 8/10www.thehkneo.com

everybody is a film critic these days... sigh..well, this is, comparatively to other HK movies, and unexpectedly good movie. Tight plot, editing and story telling - but the balancing act of reasonable plot to the 'human story' is a bit over reaching for me. By human story, I mean what's behind the hired killers' story - that he has a sick wife, ... that ties in at the ending shot ... like Pulp Fiction or Babel. Oh boy.One of the cops, yells a bit too much for my tastes. And the little girl is really, super brave. The somewhat realistic acting, night scenes, day scenes does adds to the overall atmosphere and feel.But the English title is a bit over the top - also? The Chinese title is kind of mysteries and not fitting ??????