I became a huge fan of Dante Lam after his previous outing, "Fire of Conscience". If he could make a great film with Leon Lai and Ritchie Ren, there is nothing that the director cannot do. This time, he got three HK best actors Nick Cheung, Nicholas Tse and Liu Kai Chi in a movie called "The Stool Pigeon". Throw in dozens of TVB veteran actors for cameos and a heartbreaking performance by Kwan Lun-Mei, and you get another winner. This film is about the fate of stool-pigeons (played by Liu Kai Chi and Nic Tse) and the policeman who exploits them to solve large cases (played by Nick Cheung).
The classic Dante Lam staples are all here. E.g. haunted characters: Nick Cheung becomes the cop with a conscience because of his own errors that caused the sufferings of his wife (Miao Pu), Kwan Lun-Mei plays the baddie's girlfriend who struggles to be free and Nick Cheung is a convict who is powerless to protect his sister. Liu Kai Chi gives another fantastic performance as a low-life stool pigeon who got so badly beated up that he became a retard. Nobody plays lowlifes like Liu Kai Chi but I think it's about time he does something else as he's becoming a little too typecast for these types of characters.
Finally, Dante Lam films violence as only Dante Lam can. This film is definitely not for the weak-hearted. The violence is slow, frightening and messy - Dante Lam shows us just how difficult and messy it is to kill another person. Another unbelievably good Hong Kong movie on cops, informers and gangsters.
