Director Johnnie To's PTU(2003).
© Weinstein Company & Genius Products

Mania Grade: B
DVD: PTU (Police Tactical Unit)
Rating: R
Starring: Simon Yam, Maggie Siu, Suet Lam
Written By: Nai-Hoi Yau
Directed By: Johnnie To
Distributor: The Weinstein Company & Genius Products
Original Year of Release: 2003
Extras: Director and Cast Interviews, Feature Commentary With Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan

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PTU (Police Tactical Unit)

PTU is crime noir thriller from legendary Hong Kong Director Johnnie To. As To mentions in an interview in one of the DVD’s extras, PTU was a personal and experimental project for him that took three years to complete. He worked on the film in between his contractual studio obligations and actually made seven other films in the mean time. PTU is a film that emphasizes style over substance and Johnnie To even admits that the plot is somewhat thin. While short on plot the film is literally soaked with atmosphere and personality. Filmed primarily at night on Hong Kong’s dark, lonely streets, To magnificently captures heavy shadows with skillful use of lighting sources giving the film a modern day crime noir look. You can find yourself being caught up in the film’s look and easily forget the plot…what there is of it, anyway. There’s a mesmerizing scene where the intense street lights illuminate a gentle evening mist, creating an eerie glowing effect as the PTU patrols the streets. The film is set to an 80’s bluesy rock score which at first seems totally out of place but is so out of the box that it ends up working.

PTU is an actual division of the Hong Kong police force, originally started up under British Colonial rule. PTU is an elite force which deals often with Hong Kong’s organized crime and other high level criminal activities. The film opens as Sgt. Lo of the Anti-Crime division (Aren’t all police officers technically anti-crime?) has a run-in with members of a Triad gang. While Lo goes after the gang members who dumped paint on his car, the leader of the gang, Ponytail, is murdered inside of a restaurant. Lo is beaten up by the gang and ends up losing his gun. 

Hoping to save face and avoid trouble with his superiors, Lo seeks the aid of PTU commander Mike Ho (Simon Yam) to track down the missing gun before Lo’s shift is up at dawn. Over the next hour and twenty minutes Sgt. Lo and the PTU go their separate ways, questioning suspects and searching the dark, seedy streets. Lo finds himself caught up between a potential gang war as Ponytail’s father blames a rival gang for his murder which threatens to explode the neighborhood in violence. 

PTU can be a bit uncomfortable to watch. In one scene, Mike is trying to locate Ponytail (not knowing he’s dead at the time) and forcing one gang member to “erase” the tattoo on his neck by rubbing it down to raw flesh while slapping him over and over. The quest for the missing gun is complicated by the arrival of agents from the CID (Criminal Investigation Division) led by inspector Leigh Cheng. Cheng knows there is something funny going on with Lo and is determined to find out what he is up to.

Yam has been in numerous Johnnie To films and his character here is one with strong loyalties to his friend, even if it means stretching the law to help him. I particularly enjoyed Lam’s performance as the overweight, neurotic Sgt. Lo. Bumbling as he is, there was a certain charm to his character that made you kind of root for him. He’s put through hell throughout the film and you hope everything works out. 

The visuals don’t quite make up for the thin plot and lack of action but they do make the film worth seeing.

Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan provides commentary on the film.