When a cop becomes a merciless killer

Three years after the final installment of the phenomenally successful Infernal Affairs (無間道) trilogy hit the big screen, the Hong Kong director duo Andrew Lau (劉偉強) and Alan Mak (麥兆輝), armed with a production budget of NT$350 million and a stellar cast including Tony Leung (梁朝偉), Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) and Shu Qi (舒淇), have teamed up again for their highly anticipated police thriller Confession of Pain (傷城). The film is a sensible melodrama that examines the gray area between good and evil where heartbroken individuals seek salvation.

In Confession of Pain, Leung plays homicide squad leader named Hei, while Kaneshiro is his former agent Bong, who becomes a private detective and hits the bottle after discovering his pregnant girlfriend has committed suicide.

The gruesome murder of Hei's billionaire father-in-law prompts his new wife Susan to enlist Bong's help in cracking the case. On the surface, the murder appears to be a vendetta killing, but as Bong digs deeper into the case, he realizes the killer behind the meticulously planned crime is someone close to them all.

Technically and stylistically accomplished, the film is cinematographically sharp with moody tones that find their best expression in the opening car chase across a neon-lit damp city where the characters seem trapped in the light and shade of their virtues and dark secrets.

Audiences who were fascinated by the cold-blooded murders in the Infernal Affairs trilogy will find similar thrills in Confession of Pain as its quiet manslaughter is more chilling than the massive gun fights seen in many Hong Kong action dramas.

The film falls down on its overly plain story line that deprives viewers of elements of suspense and lacks the punch to deliver an arresting narrative.

Apart from the director duo, the film also reunites Leung and Kaneshiro on screen 12 years after Wong Kar-wai's (王家衛) Chungking Express (重慶森林). Shedding his melancholy on-screen persona in Confession of Pain, the charismatic Leung makes a believable cold-blooded and elusive murderer who is nevertheless as human as a next-door neighbor. Yet the compact 90-minute thriller fails to squeeze in enough room for a full development of this complicated principle.

Kaneshiro proves himself to be more than just an Asian stud in his portrait of the downhearted man crippled with regret, while Shu Qi is properly cast as the happy-go-lucky cutie healing Bong's wounded heart and providing some much needed comic relief. The talented actor Chapman To (杜汶澤), however, goes virtually unnoticed in his role as detective Kwong who is, at best, a lovable sidekick delivering a few humorous moments.

In the final reckoning, Confession of Pain is a stylish melodrama with all the looks to become a blockbuster but fails to fulfill the directors' promise to top the epic Infernal Affairs trilogy.