Heroic Duo (2003) [Film Review]

Heroic Duo; or, Laiception
     There are many doors to the human brain. If you know the code, you can open them and see the secrets inside.
It was a sunny afternoon a few years ago. I was peg hunting at a local bookstore when I suddenly noticed a whole shelf with down-priced DVDs. The store was clearly trying to get rid of the titles, mainly obscure documentaries, but I managed to notice a cover with a title... “Hong Kong Cops”. I was like “What is this?” A quick look at the back revealed that this film is actually Heroic Duo, directed by the late Benny Chan, and starring Ekin Cheng, Leon Lai, and Francis Ng. I thought to myself that half a dollar for a HK flick is a good deal, so I grabbed the disc. Is Heroic Duo really worth 50 cents (or more)? Let’s find out together.

Release Info

Directed by: Benny Chan Starring: Ekin Chen, Leon Lai, Francis Ng

Language: Cantonese Original Title: 雙雄 Runtime: 100 min

Synopsis
Senior Inspector Ken Li (Ekin Chen) investigates the bizarre case of a police officer who was hypnotised to commit a crime. He consults a specialist in the matter, Professor Jack Lai (Leon Lai), who currently serves a sentence in prison. The two men with contrasting personalities have to work together in order to counteract the outrageous diamond heist orchestrated by a dangerous mobster known as Au-Yeung Hoi (Francis Ng).

Hypnotic Affairs
Judging from the synopsis, you would think that Heroic Duo has an interesting premise. Indeed, the first half of the film is quite engaging. It is quite refreshing to see Ekin Chen playing a frustrated and egocentric cop, but who still values order and justice above anything else. He and the laid-back Leon Lai have an awesome onscreen chemistry together, which is a shame to see this potential wasted in the second half of the picture.

That is to say, after an interesting heist sequence, Heroic Duo goes completely bonkers. The police (the same police who were aware of who Jack Lai is) are now convinced that Inspector Li committed the robbery, so they are chasing him. In the meantime, it turns out that Lai actually knows the main baddie, whose actions are also erratic and do not make any sense.

It seems that the scriptwriting team had a great idea for a short film, but they just kept adding layers of plot twists and action scenes, just to make this movie hit the two hour mark. I also believe that the presence of Leon Lai and Francis Ng is not without a reason. All in all, both actors were fresh after the success of the Infernal Affairs trilogy in which they played supporting roles.

Without revealing any spoilers, let me say that the bombastic finale just made me roll my eyes. The scenes are thrown at you without proper explanation, so you find yourself rewinding the film a couple of minutes backwards to make out what the heck is going on. It is almost as if you were hypnotised to misunderstand Heroic Duo… If that was the intention of the filmmakers, then congratulations. Mission accomplished.

Recommendations
All things considered, the cast is great, the beginning interesting, but the storyline gradually falls apart. I would appreciate it if the film was a standard crime thriller with Ekin Chen and Leon Lai working as partners throughout the whole thing. Additional word on the DVD release I have: Actually, the picture format is letterboxed, and for some reason, the distributor chose to convert the film into PAL system, which inevitably resulted in noticeable frame skipping here and there. I would say that Heroic Duo is not really worth half a dollar to watch.

Overall score: 5/10

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