How sad is this?

The first must-see film of the year.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Sergeant Tong Fei is a Hong Kong police officer and, as the story starts, he and his team are planning to arrest a senior gangster, Cheung Yat-tung. Unfortunately Cheung manages to escape; Tong and his colleague Sun give chase but it ends in tragedy; there is a car crash after which Cheung and his men steal a woman's car, Tong opens fire and the car crashes. When he gets to the car he finds Cheung seriously injured and blood dripping from the boot; he opens it and sees that there is a young girl inside… mortally wounded by the shots he fired into the car.A few months later Cheung wakes from his coma and the chief prosecutor wants him to be tried as soon as possible. There is a complication though; the woman's whose daughter was killed is the lawyer who will be leading the prosecution and Cheung has ordered the kidnap of her other daughter to force her to destroy the one piece of conclusive evidence against him. She is told not to tell the police but Tong was present when the girl was snatched so determines to save her before she is seriously harmed.When I picked up this film I knew almost nothing about it, just the blurb on the back of the DVD box, so assumed it might be exciting over-the-top action like many of the Hong Kong cop films I'd seen before… it does have plenty of moments of excitement and is very tense for most of its run-time but if you are expecting to see our hero dealing with hordes of bad guys you might be disappointed… if however you like the idea of a hero who is mostly acting alone searching for a single foe interesting then this might be the film for you. Nicholas Tse does a fine job as Tong and Nick Cheung impresses as his target; the killer hired by Cheung to kidnap the girl. This character could easily have been a pantomime villain but his back story, which we don't fully learn about till the end, makes him more human. The action scenes are pretty good; especially the car crash which is top notch. If this was a Hollywood film I'd have been sure that the kidnapped girl would be rescued but here I wasn't so sure and more than once thought something really bad could happen to her… this concern made things incredibly tense at times. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody wanting a good tense cop-thriller.These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles.

BEAST STALKER is one of those wonderful films – a crime movie with real heart behind it. The story may be hackneyed and predictable and the plot twists might be anything but, but in the end this film is a triumph because it gets to the real darkness and emotion behind the subject matter. Police procedurals and crime thrillers have long been popular in Hong Kong, but many of them are inevitably slick and soulless, providing entertainment but without real depth to back it up. Not so BEAST STALKER.The overall story is one of kidnapping, but there's much more going on with the film than that. Both heroes and villains are painted with the same level of painstaking care, so that in the end the film becomes all about character rather than cliché and the latest effort to make the hero look cool in front of a slow-motion explosion. The acting is a triumph; Nicholas Tse bags the fairly predictable role of the tortured cop and does a good job with it, but it's Nick Cheung as the would-be kidnapper who really shines. Cheung could easily have been over the top or theatrical in his turn as the film's villain, but instead he comes across as an all-too real person. He's one of the most interesting bad guys I've seen in a film, and he ignites every scene he takes part in with his dynamic performance.Of course, at the end of the day this is still a thriller, and director Dante Lam makes sure we don't forget it. There are car crashes, fist fights, shoot-outs and foot chases, and all of them are portrayed with the maximum excitement. This is the first time I've seen a film of Lam's, and I love his cinematography: he sets the scene in long shots before moving in close and staying in close whether dialogue or action is playing out. It adds a level of realism and catapults the viewer into the film in an effective, engaging way. On the strength of BEAST STALKER I'm already eager to track down more of the director's work.

A better than average H.K. thriller - even with the "Over the top" acting and special effects.With the usual convoluted plot and moral high ground for the "good guys", it seemed it might be a tight squeeze to tie up all the loose ends by the end of the picture. But, in the end, everything is nicely bundled and the emotional resolution is accompanied by the satisfaction of knowing how all the principals fit together.There may be a remake by Tarentino, but he'll be hard pressed to find a kid as cute as the one in this flick. (All the kids are cute in this one!)

This is the best Hong Kong cop thriller I have seen since "Infernal Affairs" and "Triad Election." All three films suggest critiques of Mainland China's relationship to Hong Kong chilling enough to raise them to a level of art. I expect a remake soon, although I don't think it will be as good as "The Departed."For those with no interest or awareness in contemporary Chinese politics, "Beast Stalker" works perfectly well as a thriller. But with a little reflection many contemporary Chinese films like this can be decoded as profound commentaries on the current situation in China every bit as trenchant as Sixth Generation dramas. This is a golden age of Chinese cinema. Don't underestimate what you see.