Triple Tap – Review

Derek Yee is a director that has delivered some of the most action packed scenes i’ve seen on film, but wow – I found Triple Tap to be quite exasperatingly bad. Overall, it’s a challenging movie instead of an enjoyable film. Starring Daniel Wu and Louis Koo as the leads, you would expect this to be a great HK style crime film. It follows an armored car robbery that leaves four of the robbers dead, with a policeman in coma and another robber on the run.

Triple Tap buckles under the weight of its own ambitions as a psychological thriller. There have been many films like this one in the past, where the protagonist worms his way out of increasingly sticky situations, but it isn’t handled as well as previous efforts. Also, I was very confused by the actors, It has some extraneous things in it that I don’t quite get, like why do they have to be twins? It made me think that under the hands of a better actor, Louis Koo’s character would certainly have been more convincing.

While Triple Tap does not have any heart-pounding action scenes like those in Dante Lam’s Fire of Conscience earlier this year, it does contain enough intrigue to keep you watching. More bashing on a totally unrelated note however, as it has always annoyed me when the movie poster doesn’t reflect the movie at all.  One terrible example that comes right to mind was the poster for Infernal Affairs.  Front and center of that poster is some random girl in hot pants, holding a gun. The same can be said for this film. I spent more than the first third of the film waiting for the story to begin trying to make a connection to the characters and scenes displayed on the posters.

Again, I’ve spent this whole review tearing apart the narrative but honestly, I could exhaustively pummel the issue, but frankly its not worth it. In the end, Yee’s film is a decent addition to the genre, although falls short of a home run. The saving grace is surely the ending as the whole movie I was scartching my chin wondering how this mess of a storyline would wrap up. I can say with confidence that by the time the final reel came along, all the cards fell into place and I was left with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. I honestly have no qualms with Triple Tap, I just made the mistake of going in with higher expectations. I was starting to praise this year in films in Hong Kong, so I hope this isn’t a sign the HK film industry has slid into mediocrity.