Alan Mak Siu-Fai and Felix Chong Man-Keung who made the last legend of Hong Kong Cinema with the "Infernal Affairs" (2002) series, the "dream combination" screenwriter-director parted ways with Andrew Lau Wai-Keung, and the two have co-directed many films, including "Moonlight in Tokyo" (2005) and "Lady Cop & Papa Crook" (2008),there have been no major breakthroughs, and the film level and box office are only mediocre. When "Overheard" (2009) cooperated with Yee Tung-Shing and Henry Fong Ping, it was brilliant. The film achieved good box office in both Hong Kong and the Mainland China. The audience and film critics responded positively. "Overheard" uses three police officers in the police intelligence department who are responsible for electronic tracking and eavesdropping. In an investigation into a listed company's suspected market creation case, he overheard the news of the expansion, and the three people were in danger for a while due to greed.

The characters of the three protagonists have been clearly explained in the opening scenes of the film. Among them, the triangular relationship between Lau Ching-Wan, Zhang Jingchu and Alex Fong Chung-Shun, several paragraphs have presented the complicated relationship between couples, lovers, bosses and subordinates, and friends, their conflicts are quite clean and neat, without the sloppiness of their previous works. It seems that the producer Yee Tung-Shing deserves a credit. Louis Koo Tin-Lok's family and the troubles of terminal illness and the pressure of Daniel Wu Yin-Cho's "marrying into a wealthy family" from his father-in-law Henry Fong all caused them to have crooked thoughts. As a boss, Lau Ching-Wan faced two good partners and subordinates. He knew the law and broke the law and felt cruel to deal with it according to the law. And his own feelings towards Alex Fong and Zhang Jingchu could not distinguish right from wrong. The three tried to "quell" the incident by destroying the evidence and preventing the suspect from committing the murder, but they were still identified by Queenie Chu Wai-Man, a subordinate of the mastermind Michael Wong, which led to the murder of them and their relatives.

The film highly dramatizes commercial crimes, and some of the unreasonable plots in the film become "natural" due to the tight plot and the fact that the general audience may not understand the operation of the financial market. However, there off-duty police officers went to the stock exchange to trade stocks, this behavior is unbelievable, and when the stock price continues to rise, the scene of a group of retail investors shouting and screaming is really unimaginable for Hong Kong stockholders who have experienced many ups and downs. Although the film has more or less flaws, the film is definitely the best work of the two directors since the "Infernal Affairs" series, plus the wonderful performances of many actors, including the frustrated and impulsive Louis Koo and misguided Daniel Wu, they quite competent. And Lau Ching-Wan is more able to integrate and control the rhythm of the film.

At the end of the film, Lau Ching-Wan and Louis Koo fought back and took revenge on Michael Wong, who was apparently a successful businessman and philanthropist, but was actually a criminal. Even the boss Lam Ka-Wah colluded with Louis Koo and Michael Wong to drive into the sea together to "return justice" to his family and Daniel Wu. This "violence and violence' method will make the audience feel psychologically satisfied. But it lacks a kind of introspection. In their "Infernal Affairs II" (2003),after Eric Tsang Chi-Wai used Anthony Wong Chau-Sang to kill his wife's murderer Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Anthony Wong complained Eric Tsang did not have the opportunity to send a criminal to court for trial, and the film was more conscious of the law in addition to satisfying the audience.

By Kam Po LAM (original in Chinese)

I'm increasingly loving the direction that Hong Kong movies have taken in the new millennium - or rather, after the super success of Infernal Affairs in 2002 - towards taut thrillers full of action and twists and polish. However, while most look good on the surface, not many reach the level of quality that Infernal Affairs did (I much preferred it to The Departed, incidentally).

Overheard is about a trio from a police surveillance team who illegally use "overheard" insider trading information towards their own gains and have to face the violent repercussions that follow. Quite an interesting story but it wasn't as tight as I would've liked. I mean, oops one of them lets a witness see his face and oops that witness just happens to spot him again while about to flee the country - that's too much of a stretch.

The action's good though - there were some tense sequences - and the acting's decent. I'm a fan of Lau Ching Wan and though Louis Koo and Daniel Wu are overrated, they're adequate enough here. Actually I think I've never seen Koo better, though he looked much too pretty for his role.

The key deal in the film is about information, and how it is King, and can be used as a tradable commodity from making money, to saving lives. Everyone has a price especially when you're in possession of vital, life-making or breaking, juicy insider news from stock tips to who's banging who, and Mak/Chong had imbued their characters with shades of grey rather than the usual boring black and white type, where on one hand you may not condone what they have done, and yet on the other, you would wonder if given the same set of circumstances whether you will succumb to temptation when the same opportunity presents itself.

Which of course leads us to the perennial question of who watches the watchmen. It is always easy to say, like the chief villain in the film (played by Michael Wong),that an organization is built upon honesty and integrity, but face it, it is a human face that's running the operations, and with human failings and trappings, there's the inherent potential that some hanky-panky could be done behind the scenes. Cases of corporate scandals overseas and locally would already be a case in point, and the story in Overheard pushes all the right buttons in gelling such material all together into one solid, edge of your seat movie.

Lau Cheng Wan (fan here, and good to see him back on the big screen!) plays Johnny, who heads an electronic eavesdropping, oops, I mean, surveillance team with buddies and direct reports Gene (Louis Koo) and Max (Daniel Wu). Together, the trio is responsible for bugging the office of a conglomerate suspected of insider trading and shady businesses. As the story goes, Gene and Max happen to exploit their newly gained knowledge for personal gain, and unfortunately as supervisor with a sympathetic heart, Johnny chooses to play along to protect his subordinates, rather than to bust them wide open to their superiors.

The film moves at breakneck speed, and it also managed to provide that little bit of detail toward the personal lives of the main characters. With Gene, his pressure comes from a critically ill son with insurmountable hospital bills to settle. Max on the other hand wants a personal fortune in order to stand up to his future wealthy father-in-law who looks down on him and his social stature. Johnny too is not squeaky clean morally too, as he's having affair with his best friend (Alex Fong) and colleague's wife Mandy (Zhang Jingchu). And in one key scene late in the film, we see how deeply corrupt he can be through the shift of blame, especially when required to save his own skin. So the stage is set for the devil to whisper inside their ears, to take the bait and go for the kill, participating in the insider trading and throwing away their moral authority as cops sworn to uphold the law.

Which of course means even bigger lies created to cover original fibs, and watching them sweat bucketloads each time things go awry, and they have to do deeper down into the rabbit hole. It made me recall a saying my old principal gave one day at the school assembly, that only the truth will set you free. In this case you'd wonder at which point the characters would decide to make a clean break and own up, and therein lies part of the fun in watching the film, getting equally frustrated with some of them as they go further down the slippery slope.

The casting is something that deserves a mention, as it's one of the chief ingredients in holding the movie together, and engaging the audience's attention throughout. Lau Cheng Wan is evergreen, and has so much charisma on screen, that he could have been just sweeping the road for all that matter, and still has this steely surety that with him at your side, nothing could go wrong. His big brother role to the other younger actors in Daniel Wu and Louis Koo spoke volumes as it got translated down to the story, playing the leader of the pack who decides to haul his flock out of trouble. And all three male leads were extremely believable as buddies who'd stick to one another through thick and thin, and in one scene where they were congregating in a flat when Mandy returns, was just about the best scene to demonstrate this camaraderie. The other scene which had me in chuckles, also related to Lau, was that stock market scene. Lau had propelled too fame through an old television series about stock broking as well, and I thought that was a scene with a well placed insider homage to his roots.

Cinematography was excellent as well, with Hong Kong put under the romantic spotlight at times, and one of my favourites involved a montage sequence which Mak/Chong used to perfection in showing the drudgery, monotony and cyclic fashion of a round the clock surveillance, with fatigue and shift changes all rolled nicely into one. Some may take offense at the way the film ended, but I thought it was quiet poetic justice, and almost brought a tear in my eye considering how the villains will stop at nothing, not even if you're a cop, at ensuring those who take an illegal cut of their ill gotten gains, will get dished some just desserts.

While I would have placed this under the highly recommended watch list, by virtue of this film being badly butchered at one point would mean that I would advise, if you prefer your movies uncut, to wait for the DVD, which of course has the additional bonus of the original Cantonese language track as well. And this theatrical presentation here is just another case in point that for the same PG rating, scenes of gore are more tolerated than a make out session in the office. Go figure.