Protege Reviews

[Highly rated reviewer]

An infernal affair

Starts off promisingly as a slick HK thriller-cum-Andy Lau vehicle, but soon gets bogged down in druggy social realism. Thanks, but we do them.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Showing the West how to make 'em

In less than 50 words, if you liked Infernal Affairs you'll enjoy this. These guys put Hollywood to shame when it comes to cop movies.Anything that has the magnificent Andy Lau in it is well worth a look. Superb !

[Highly rated reviewer]

Above average

A good film,very bleak so my cup of tea exactly.

Granted the ending could have been better though it features the always brilliat Andy Lau and has a couple of nice scenes of the good ol'ultra-violence as well.

Recommended for fans of asian cinema. my rating 3.5 /5

[Highly rated reviewer]

Not the best Cantonese film I have seen

but was still watchable. A little weak in areas but still worth renting

[Highly rated reviewer]

Gritty Drama

A tad preachy perhaps and even a little clichéd but without doubt this is a fine example of emotional filmmaking. Looking at the drug problem from both a dealer and an addict’s perspective, this is another undercover cop story lifted up above average thanks to some quality direction from Derek Yee who always manages to make this feel gritty and real. Daniel Wu has never been better as the deep undercover cop and he has some fine supports from Andy Lau (Looking Richard Gere grey), Zhang Jing-Chu and Louis Koo. This is a quality drama with some moments of action that never detract from the character driven story being told.

not quite sure...

This isn't a film to watch just because you happen to like Infernal Affairs. Actually, its more a natural complement to the film 'One Night in Mongkok' which also has the same protagonist, Daniel Wu. I admit, I watched this film for Andy Lau and the Infernal Affairs thing, so my expectations were feeling a little wanting by about half an hour. I restarted the film and started watching from the beginning again once i realised my mistake.

I think this film does its best, like 'One Night in Mongkok' to give a lot more character to the 'social realism'/reality behind the film. The problem is then, that it starts to give off the feel of a pretentious TV drama because its also so well produced and has such a recognisable cast. Thats really quite unfortunate because it does start to get absorbing. The problem with trying things like this, is that actually the story unfolding starts to become the backdrop.

Nick's character in particular is an exceptionally complex one. I actually don't think its portrayed well. He seems to have an Orlando Bloom effect of being totally wooden at times. Like 'One Night in Mongkok', he tends to play a bit of a fallen angel. However, he rarely seems human at all in the film and so it gets unrealistic in this sense. Let me put it this way, Daniel Wu is definitely not as gripping to watch as Tony Leung in Infernal Affairs.

There is relatively little violence in the film. I think the most blood you see is an animal which has been run over. It isn't really a gangster film though. The closest you would get to this in terms of Hollywood is probably Goodfellas. The backdrop of dealing with the drugs trade (heroin) becomes the driver for all of the characters. It just seems overdone.

I still actually don't understand the point of the end of the film. It just highlights to me that this was a little too pretentious in carrying out.

bid odd

This movie was not bad but it was a bit odd and slow, I would not rent again

Painfull!!!!

Quite possibly the worst film i have ever seen. Only managed to watch the first hour which was painful. The voice overs were cheesy and the acting was rubbish.

The acting and voice overs were so poor that i could not get into the storyline.

Painfull!!!

slow

didn't watch whole film, god bored.

Protege

Classic eastern tale of revenge containing numerous twists and turns throughout towards a fantastic climax