Screenwriter Su Chao-Bin's screenplay is quirky even by the anything-goes standards of Hong Kong action pictures: Its killer commits murder to gain immortality.
Despite resentment from the rank and file, Taiwan’s police chief imports FBI profiler Kevin Richter (David Morse) to help investigate the death of a corrupt CEO who appears to have drowned on the 17th floor of his high-rise office. The police believe a mysterious intruder was involved, the same intruder who incinerates a senator’s mistress without damaging her Taipei love-nest. Detective Huang Huo-Tu (Tony Leung) has no interest in being Richter’s partner; he's already got too much on his mind. Ostracized by his peers for blowing the whistle on corruption and ruining his brother’s career, Huo-Tu nurses terrible feelings of guilt over the consequences. His brother took Huo-Tu’s daughter hostage and was subsequently shot to death. Nevertheless, Huo-Tu and Richter learn to work together and discover that a religious cult may be responsible for the serial killings. When a monk is disemboweled, Richter relies on forensics to deduce the "how" of the crimes. Mites carrying a deadly virus invade the brains of victims through air-conditioning vents; the killer determines the personalized manner in which the virus strikes. Further
research into mystical lore reveals a striking, 1000-year-old belief associated with the True Sage religion: A terminally ill person can attain eternal life by carrying out five ritualistic murders, each of which represents a circle of Hell. Aided by two tycoons who’ve capitalized a new branch of this particular True Sage belief, a young woman has been slaying corrupt people in hopes of curing her fatal, hereditary brain tumor. The police wipe out the cult’s fanatical followers, but the now-demonic woman escapes. Born with two pupils in one eye, Huo-Tu can use his double vision to spot the diabolical female; they complication is that both Richter and Huo-Tu’s family stand in her way and she's determined to immortalize herself.
Bolstered by the performances of Leung and Morse, this bizarre adventure probes the nature of guilt and tackles such post-millennium obsessions as new plagues, the nature of evil, the downside of scientific breakthroughs, religious extremism and East-West culture clashes. The film is sometimes confusing, but it packs a lot of material into one action package. leave a comment --Robert Pardi