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From the opening scene where we see a bound and gagged Daniel Wu
lying in a freshly dug grave and soil is covering him up fairly
quickly, we know that Cop on a Mission does not have a happy ending.
Accompanied by a voice over, we learn how Mike (Wu) has got to his
sorry messy end.
Jump back to a few months and Mike was just a
normal cop patrolling on the beat. He moans about his work and misses
his girlfriend, the sister of his best friend Chung, who is also
a cop. After a shoot-out in a teashop, Mike is relieved of his duty
because of his trigger-happy finger. His superior, Officer Cheung
fires him so that he can enlist him into doing undercover duty.
His job is to infiltrate the Hung Hing Triad society run by Yum
King-tin (Eric Tsang) and to pass on details to Officer Cheung of
their dealings.
Mike quickly rises up the triad ranks after saving
the life of Yum's wife Pauline, and soon becomes the right hand
man of Yum. Mike carries out Yum's wishes with gusto, whether it
is to solve Pauline's gambling debts or to kill a rival, and he
does each job exceptionally, gaining Yum's trust ever more.
However, after saving Pauline the second time,
Mike and she are beginning to have an affair. Mike had seen Pauline
before, in a restaurant small room changing clothes while he was
peeping in the darkness. His relationship with Pauline becomes more
satisfying, for Pauline anyway, after he hears that Yum had suffered
a severe incident in the groin section, and could not make love
to Pauline for the past four years. Pauline is indeed sexually frustrated,
and Mike is the ideal substitute: Strong, handsome, athletic and
loyal to boot.
Mike's loyalties begin to cloud him when he realises
that he loves what he is doing. He likes to be a big boss, to fight
and earn his kingdom; he likes the attention and the loyalty his
men give him; he begins to enjoy spending money extravagantly, money
he could never earn in a lifetime's work as a normal cop. And so
the temptation of the dark side becomes too much for Mike, his reasoning
of good and bad becomes a major blur. To him, everything is not
black or white but a simple shade of grey, a boundary where he can
cross whenever he feels like it. But it is this lack of justice
and righteousness that is to be his undoing.
In the end, Mike becomes filled with greed and
power. He wants it all, even to the point of killing his best friend
Chung, who went undercover with him, and Officer Cheung so that
he could keep his identity secret. But his greed blinds his once
strong sense of instinct, and he falls victim to his own success.
Finally, he realises that he had dug his own grave.
Cop on a Mission is a very enjoyable film. The
action is well shot, but not exciting, and the strength of the film
lies in the dramatic performances of Wu, Tsang and Kwan. Mike is
the splinter to Yum and Pauline's marriage, but he is also their
saviour. Without Mike, Pauline would never know how much Yum loved
her, and without Mike, Yum would not have become more powerful -
since it was Mike who eliminated Yum's rivals one by one.
This film can also be a moral lesson for all undercover
cops: that the temptation can often be very strong for one to cross
the thin line between black and white. Once you have crossed it,
there is no return after you had a taste of what's to offer. You
will feel infinitely more powerful than you could ever be, and you
have truckloads of money to spend lavishly. You have power, and
everyone knows that power corrupts even the most benign and righteous
of men.
Overall, a very enjoyable film that earns its
merits by the good plot and excellent characterisations.
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