This Cantonese action movie - Accident or Yi Ngoi - which comes with English subtitles, gripped our attention right from the outset as we witnessed how a traffic jam is meticulously choreographed and turned into what looked like an unfortunate mishap.
It was another “almost perfectly” staged act of crime on a triad boss by accident choreographer, Ho Kwok-fai aka the Brain (starring Louis Koo) and his three-member team, Fatty, Uncle and a nameless character played by Lam Suet, Feng Tsui-fan and Michelle Ye respectively.
I say “almost perfectly” because professional hitman Ho had to pick up the tell-tale cigarette butt left behind by the forgetful Uncle.
He reminded his team that there is no room for such slips no matter how small they might appear to be.
“We are not the only one in this business” and that “accidents can also happen to us.”
What he said here set the tone for the movie as my girlfriend Tina Oh and I watched it seated at the last row of the almost empty cinema hall for this movie preview on 18 September just before the Hari Raya holiday break.
Now showing in the cinema circuits in Malaysia, Accident was presented both at the 66th Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It was acclaimed as “one of the finest Hong Kong crime dramas since Infernal Affairs” by one reviewer.
This fascinating action thriller is directed by Macau-born Pou Soi Cheang, who had started his career as Johnnie To's assistant. Incidentally, To, one of Hong Kong’s leading directors whose stylish action film esthetics have been featured in the major international film festivals, is Accident’s producer.
The movie’s hero, Ho, is brilliantly played by Koo, who has acted in over 40 movies todate. I last met Koo when he was in Kuala Lumpur to launch one of Osim’s massage chairs.
Ho is a real paranoid as he even bugs his own team’s headquarter. He had us convinced that someone is out there plotting to terminate him and his team after their next mission commissioned by their client Wong (played by Chan Mong-wah), who wanted his father killed, accidentally went wrong and cost Fatty’s life.
Ho became obsessed that the insurance agent Fong, played by Taiwan actor-cum-singer Richie Jen, is the mastermind behind the conspiracy to take him out. He strives to kill Fong before he makes his next move.
We are shown a paranoid Ho, who suffers from his wife’s death, which he suspects was a hit and not an accident. He shuts everyone he knows out of his life and even thinks that his own teammates are plotting against him.
Ho subsequently kills one of them, who is played by actress Ye. Rather than take the thunder out of the ending of this intriguing movie, you have to watch it yourself to see how the killers themselves become victims of accidental forces.
