Writers: Lau Ho-Leung and Liang Hong
Director: Lau Ho-Leung
Caught in Time, written by director Lau Ho-Leung with Liang Hong, is based upon the real-life story of robber Zhang Jun, who was dubbed “China’s number one outlaw” and said to have killed or injured around 50 people during the 1990s.
Detective Zhong Cheng (Wang Qianyuan) has a poor first day on his new job. He interrupts a robbery by the notorious Eagle Gang but is overpowered and, at the whim of their leader Zhang Sun (Daniel Wu) nick- named The Falcon, dressed as a gang member, and left for his colleagues to arrest. This sets in motion a series of ‘catch-me -if-you-can’ skirmishes between the adversaries.
Director Lau Ho-Leung avoids the obvious clichés associated with the crime/ thriller genre. Rather than a moody noir atmosphere in which crime takes place after dark; the robberies occur in bright daylight which has the associated problem of exposing the maximum number of people to possible violence. Detective Zhong Cheng is far from being a maverick cop who does not follow the rules and is instead something of a boy scout; removing fly posters from official billboards and reminding aggrieved robbery victims of the need to support the police.
The movie is set in the same time period as the real-life events occurred, so the detectives are compelled to rely on more cinematically exciting traditional crime fighting methods than simply watching computer screens. One of the turning points in the plot is the use of radical new technology such as surveillance cameras and pagers.
The film is shamelessly manipulative and not always logical. A character declaring they have a date lined up is a sure sign they are likely to be the next victim of violence. Despite Detective Cheng scolding an officer for an act of bravery undertaken without wearing a bullet-proof vest, none of the police (including Cheng) ever dons protective gear. For a movie full of gunfire and explosions director Lau Ho-Leung opts for an almost low-key showdown with the enemies in an (admittedly extremely violent) fistfight. Yet the lack of nuance shown in the characterisation continues and the determination to avoid any possible interpretation of a homo-erotic relationship between the characters is so intense that despite the highly physical battle taking place in a bath house both manage to retain towels around their waists
Director Lau Ho-Leung acknowledges his influences with both police and criminals jokingly regarding John Woo’s hyper-action movie The Killer as an educational training film. It is, however, hard to avoid making comparisons with Michael Mann’s Heat, also factually based and featuring a cat-and-mouse relationship between police and criminals. The comparison does not serve Caught in Time well; there is no sense of grudging admiration between the characters, and they are less ambiguous.
Daniel Wu is a stylishly grinning villain; psychopathically capable of letting a child play with a live hand grenade. It is credible he might regard a police officer daring to try and foil his schemes as a challenge and be personally affronted when his opponent succeeds. Yet Wang Qianyuan’s detective is driven more by a conventional sense of duty than any personal demons and, as a result, the potential conflict between the characters is never really becomes compelling. For Zhong Cheng it is just business, not personal.
Although Caught in Time has features refreshingly different from traditional action movies, the thin characterisation makes it more conventional than satisfyingly radical.
Signature Entertainment presents Caught in Time on Digital Platforms 7th February.
