Andy Lau plays Johnston Chong, a former Hong Kong police detective who has retired after suffering a detached retina and lives off of police rewards offered to those who provide tip-offs. Inspector Goldie Ho (Cheng) has a run in with Johnston while working a case, and fascinated by his crime-solving abilities, enlists his help in solving a case that went cold over ten years ago, involving the disappearance and presumed murder of a series of young women.
Forgive us if the above synopsis makes this sound like your regular, sense-making police procedural flick: it`s not. This is supposed to be some sort of comedy, and to call the slapstick tomfoolery “broad would be like calling the Burj Khalifa “tall a gross understatement. The film takes place in real-world Hong Kong, not some heightened cartoon realm, so it is absolutely baffling when everybody acts like they`ve stepped out of an old Tex Avery animated short. Not only is the comedy off-kilter, it`s oftentimes downright off-putting, particularly when it makes light of self-mutilation, murder and even cannibalism.
Andy Lau`s Johnston is less Blind Swordsman Zatoichi and more Mr Magoo. Lau apparently studied with visually-impaired students and trained for six weeks to portray a blind character the result? An “unorthodox ex-policeman who bumps into things a lot and who eats in every other scene, which we guess is supposed to be “symbolic of something. The character isn`t the typical leading man Lau portrays, so he comes off as miscast at times. Among his more outrÃ