Review | Caught in Time movie review: Wang Qianyuan, Daniel Wu play cop and robber in disappointing Chinese heist thriller
- Daniel Wu and Wang Qianyuan show their charisma as a robber and a policeman
- The promising start to this cat-and-mouse thriller is squandered by a confusing plot
2/5 stars
“Tell me a joke. If it’s funny, I’ll spare your life,” says Daniel Wu Yin-cho’s cold-blooded bank robber to a hostage in Caught in Time, Hong Kong director Lau Ho-leung’s follow-up to his fun 2015 debut Two Thumbs Up. Yet disappointment inevitably beckons for anyone misled by that cheeky quote into thinking this heist thriller set in mainland China takes after the earlier film’s goofy characterisation.
Wang Qianyuan (Saving Mr. Wu) is Zhong Cheng, a no-nonsense police captain who stumbles upon a robbery scene on his first day on duty in a new precinct. Taken on the escape vehicle as a hostage by Falcon (Wu with a funky hairstyle), the mastermind of a criminal gang of six, Zhong bites off part of the latter’s ear before he is himself thrown off the car. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game between cop and robber that lasts for years.
If that reminds you of Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), do know that Caught in Time is less preoccupied with the conflicted bond between its two leads than it is the image of China’s law-enforcement units as an utterly honourable and fearless bunch. Even the fragile Michelle Wai Sze-nga (Ready or Knot) gets the memo, playing an officer who rushes into a deadly shoot-out to save innocent lives – without wearing a bulletproof vest.
Lau’s film is inspired by a series of armed robberies in the 1990s – before China tightened its gun control laws in 1996 and became “one of the safest countries in the world”, according to the end credits. It is a confused effort to reconcile its true-crime roots and genre trimmings; the fact Falcon is the only character being humanised with a spouse (Jessie Li) and a mother (Nina Paw Hee-ching) also looks odd for the crime-fighting propaganda.
For all the charisma that Wang and Wu bring, Caught in Time lives and dies by its plotting as a police procedural – and it fails miserably in the second half. Despite featuring the rare sight of Chinese policemen being brutally shot dead, the realism of its screenplay – credited to Lau and Leo Hong Liang – doesn’t extend to the tactics and strategies involved in the police operations, which repeatedly feel muddled.
The story’s lapses in clarity culminate in a thrilling but illogical climax, set in a bathhouse, where Zhong goes all gung-ho on Falcon in a reckless bid to take down the wanted man on his own. While many viewers’ attention here might be distracted by the gravity-defying towels around the protagonists’ waists, Lau must do a lot better in the storytelling department when he revisits this premise for the already announced sequel.
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