Drug trafficker On (Alex Fong) flies in from Holland to Macau in order to retrieve his boss's daughter who's been kidnapped by dirty cop Coke (Ken Wong). To get the job done, On puts together a small but effective team consisting of gun expert Wood (Ken Chang) and S&M killer Rain (Anya). After busting the daughter out of the police station where she's kept, facts are revealed that now makes the trio wanted both by the triads and the police...

While Sharp Guns isn't THE hidden gem Hong Kong cinema fans have been looking for, it nonetheless possesses a b-movie energy that entertains and the filmmakers in the end really show that they didn't take much of this seriously. Nor should we as the triad plot with twists, multiple double crosses and inept henchmen has been done to death before. With no really A-list people on the project, or a sizable budget, Tang makes good of what he got and has fun doing it.

Despite the apparent edgy, hard boiled surface, our introduction to characters reveals such over the top, comic book like, traits, such as Anya's ways of interrogation, Ken Chang's ability to detect gunpowder odor and of course Alex Fong's Tricky On character that simply never is less than on top of his game, that you can't help to smile a bit and just settle in for pure enjoyment. No one on this project set out to rival any classics or even dreamt of making a permanent mark on Hong Kong cinema either and Billy Tang, while this is nothing like his Cat III work, has got a held back sensibility about this kind of action-thriller that is commendable. As written, none of the characters rise out of either their stereotype or what they are for 90 minutes. That is, believe it or not, sufficient to carry forward and especially in Anya's case, who needs more than that fairly good intensity and looks to want to follow through with this narrative? Obviously, the plot exposition alarm goes off on a few occasions but early, Tang has already, non verbally, explained to us that our intentions are not sky high, nor should your expectations be. It may not add up logically, it's not refined storytelling but the characters and, what we're concentrating on next, Tang's eye for the visual, rarely makes Sharp Guns boring.

I say rarely because initially the movie seems to go just a tiny bit too slow towards main plot devices but Tang is soon comfortable giving us slick shots and select sparks of entertaining visuals. He seems to shoot his low angles to death, making the movie bigger as well as characters. In fact, he uses it so much that, if you're really going into overanalyzing, you tend to think that there's a satire on display here, directed towards the triad characters. Nevertheless, especially when the small bits of gunplay hits, Tang thankfully thinks better in editing together with action director Ma Yuk-Sing, resulting in a few pleasing set pieces.

Sharp Guns obviously doesn't reach anything more than decent, which is good enough and the criticism I do have against it is that it breaks out of its subtle and sly sense of humour to deliver full on comedy sometimes, courtesy of Ken Chang's character. It really doesn't benefit the film at all but thankfully, these excursions are only selected. In addition, the coda during the end credits seems like an outspoken plot point that comes out of nowhere. Odd inclusion. Ken Chang, and really everyone else, works better in the so called serious mood that their characters are in. Tang seems to have concentrated on that, in particular in the case of Anya's role as Rain. He gets decent intensity from her and that was more than I expected. Plus, male viewers won't complain about her wardrobes in the film. Alex Fong logs a playful, cool performance, possibly the one that helps the film reach the level it does. This is a cool cat. Period. And Fong injects touches of humour that definitely adds to the Tricky, in the Tricky On character. Alex has previously impressed with his reserved nature to performances but Sharp Guns brings out, slightly more I should say, the clown in him and he still impresses.

Sharp Guns is way different than what Billy Tang did with Red To Kill and Run And Kill. Both those movies have traits to them that still are evident in his work though. Namely sly, black humour and a good visual sense. This CatIIb rated effort from 2001 won't blow anyone's mind but quite simply, by not taking itself very seriously, the entertainment level unexpectedly reaches decent.

Even though Alex Fong (one of my favorite HK actors) is the de facto star of this movie, it is really Anya (one of the "sharp guns") who is the film's centerpiece. Like Chingmy Yau in Naked Killer and Almen Wong in Her Name is Cat, Anya's performance masterfully combines both sex and violence into a mesmerizing role and she steals the show every time she is on screen (which is thankfully a lot). Without her character and performance, Sharp Guns would be your fairly typical Triad revenge movie. The plot is by the numbers, and the action is done well, but it's nothing special.

This restrained (at least for HK movies) approach is suprising coming from Billy Tang, the director nicknamed "Bloody Billy" for his movies like Dr. Lamb. I wish Tang would have used more of the "punch" we have come to expect from his films (especially during the ending, which is much too upbeat for one of his movies) to make it stand out a bit more from the pack of similarly-themed films. At rate, Sharp Guns is a solid action movie that's worth a look, especially if you're into the femme fatales.