Asian Film Review: 'Triple Tap' (槍王之王)|「槍王之王」影評

I just got back from the HK premiere of Derek Yee's 'Triple Tap' (槍王之王), starring Daniel Wu and Louis Koo as the leads, with all stars Li Bingbing, Charlene Choi, Alex Fong, Lam Suet, Chapman To and Andrew Linsupporting.    I'm a big fan of HK style crime films, and a big fan of Derek Yee, so I was expecting to enjoy this film, at least on a base action level.  :-P

You may not be aware, but Derek Yee made a film called 'Double Tap' in 2003 with Leslie Cheung and Alex Fong,  this film is somewhat of a sequel (hence the title),  in that it vaguely connects with the same subject matter - competitive shooting.    In the case of Triple Tap,  most of the action happens away from the gun range though!

Competitive shooter Louis Koo, happens upon a crime in progress... 

and of course it would be a short, boring movie if he doesn't get involved.

as you may know,  handgun laws are quite strict in HK...

so this film becomes a bit of a courtroom drama...

and some love triangle action thrown in for good measure:

Louis Koo = shooting master + finance master + boyfriend to beautiful and/or powerful women x TWO! :-P

Meanwhile CID officer Daniel leaves no stone unturned...

Don't worry, I'm not really giving anything away!  The movie is pretty entertaining and has enough twisting and turning to make it entertaining.   The performances are decent, although Daniel's character needs more backstory (he has almost zero...   I can't even remember his character's name!)  There is some connection to the first movie -  Alex Fong apparently is playing the same character from Double Tap, coming back to give advice to Daniel in his investigation.

Andrew plays the guy in the box.... AND the guy holding the picture! :-P

Anyway, long story short,  I give this movie a solid 7/10.  (plus one since I like these kinds of movies).     It has some extraneous things in it that I don't quite get (like WHY do they have to be twins?)

Speaking of twins - there are like 50 different versions of the poster for this film.  The above two are just the tip of the ice berg! 

I think this is the main one for the Mainland...    but wait,  why is Charlene holding a gun? she plays a nurse! (who doesn't hold a gun in the entire movie!?)

Actually I guess they just tried to get the gun motif in all the Mainland posters:

These two images have little to nothing to do with any scenes in the actual movie.  :-P

I always make fun of Korean films for creating posters that have little or nothing to do with the actual movie...  I guess Chinese cinema is slowly catching up! :-P