Colour of the Truth
- -A man becomes a cop in order to take down the police superintendent who may have killed his father, and that of a vengeful Triad boss.
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As a child Chan Lok-yin’s policeman father died in a rooftop shooting and the sole surviving witness from the scene, chief inspector Huang Jiang (Anthony Wong), was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The young man (Raymond Wong) grew up believing otherwise, however, and bearing a strong grudge against Huang he changed his name twice and joined the police. Once on the force Chan gets noticed by higher-ups and is put onto Huang’s team, which is charged with cracking an arms smuggling case. As the young man starts to get close to Huang he finds the man he’s hated may not be the sly old fox he once thought him to be. Matters soon complicate as the Vietnamese arms runners prove a ruthless bunch to tackle and supposed ex-crime boss Mr Wang (Patrick Tse) engages the team for round-the-clock protection. Part revenge drama and part police actioner, Colour of the Truth marked a surprise entry from co-directors Wong Jing and Marco Mak. Released in the wake of Infernal Affairs’ success in the crime thriller genre, the movie surpassed expectations of being a clone of that movie but instead held its own with engaging scripting and interesting characters. Little is as it seems on the surface, from the lead character’s impression of the senior policeman to the elaborate games played by film’s criminals. Action unfolds efficiently for the course of the movie, set to an attractive score and staging entertaining gunfighting scenes, a highlight of which is a video game-like shoot-’em-up segment with the hero guided from a closed-circuit TV control room. The cast acquits itself well, from initial cameos by Lau Ching-wan and Francis Ng through to a superb performance by Anthony Wong, whose domestic scenes are granted a depth seldom seen in the Hong Kong’s cops n’ robbers films.
Tim Youngs
Thanks to Far East Film Festival