One of my all time favorites.

A different way of telling a story

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

To be almost have it but not. To almost know the complete picture but still missing some pieces. To fear but you must go on. Don't we know this is the way most of us experience life?You can get frustrated by some of the more nuance Johonnie To films. They may not be about the ends but the means. They may not be about plot lines but plot circles. And PTU is about as round as you get. But notice the cool eating places, the explicit and yet natural lighting, the play of light and shadows. It is a poem more than a story, almost.Maybe it is not important who lost what or who gain what in the this one single night within the movie, but drink in the atmosphere, walk with the people of the night, see their world, worries their worries, and live another life!

We meet the PTU on one of their worse nights. Chasing a suspect, a police sergeant loses his gun, and streets away, the son of a crime lord is stabbed to death in a small restaurant. We follow the PTU in their attempts to both find the policeman's weapon and prevent the fallout from the murder escalating. While it sounds an intriguing premise, PTU is not the pacey action-thriller you might expect, but is instead a slow, dark, and tense journey through the HK underworld.Some scenes are brilliant, the use of harsh light and almost omnipresent shadow works well, effectively capturing the mood of the underworld. There's some real artistry here, and it's for that reason that the pacing frequently seems to be a little slow; the scenes look so good that the camera lingers on them for perhaps too long, causing pacing issues in some sections. However, it does work well in terms of suspense as the film builds towards its inevitably violent conclusion.On a negative note, the music is terrible, and significantly dates a film that's only four years old. You have to wonder if they ran out of action movie ambiance sounds and just hit the classic cheese guitar button instead, but I guess that's just an Eastern film meets Western audience convention clash. It does however, in my opinion, completely undermine the final scene, which comes across as faintly ridiculous instead of as a dramatic release.While it suffers from pacing and score issues, PTU's style and sense of tragic irony are enough to make it enjoyable if not quite essential viewing.

I'm convinced that much of film is reverberation from the phenomenon of noir. The key element of noir was a capricious fate that both played arbitrary havoc with lives and flavored the eye of the camera.I am not thoroughly steeped in Hong Kong work, but there seem to be three main communities: the deeply cinematic experimentalists led by Kar-wai, the stylistic ballet of Woo and company and the neo-noirists. Unfortunately, these can superficially appear similar in many respects. But I think here we have a clear case of the third.The game is dark. Everyone seems to think they are in charge, but no one is. Luck plays the key role and many coincidences appear. The camera eye is based on the long lens.I'm beginning to appreciate cinematographers who exploit either the long or short lens. I think it is impossible to do noir with a short lens because it is so obvious that the eye is within the space of action. But few noir films go so far, so long as this one.Forget the story, which is only to convey the accidents and lack of control (except for the central scene where one character tries to get another to rub a tattoo off his neck). And forget the characters; they are just tokens borrowed from other movies. Just revel in the philosophy here: why does a world exist where everything is a matter of chance, but you as the viewer always, always happen to be in the right place to see everything?Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I just finished watching the import dvd version of this film. A great Crime Drama. Simon Yam proves once again that his screeen presence is amazing. Check out the scene in the video game hall when a young Triad wannabe tries to cop a tough guy display towards Simon. Guess who wins? The movie flows very much like a Docu-Drama. The P.T.U. (Police Tactical Unit) is very much like the "beat cops" division. However, they all patrol in units of six. Like a platoon. You can feel the grit of the downtown streets of Hong Kong. This is one film to see. Also directed by Johnnie To: The Mission, Fulltime Killer. Both have Simon Yam. Another cool film about the P.T.U. is Big Bullet starring Lau Ching Wan and Anthony Wong Chau-sang.