"Divergence" reunites the Storm Riders, Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng, and throws in Daniel Wu just for kicks. With Benny Chan behind the camera and such star power involved, it seemed like "Divergence" would be a surefire hit. But a convoluted story, unlikable characters, some over-wrought moments, and too little action derail this train before it even leaves the station. It does have its redeeming qualities but you've really got to like at least one of the main actors to feel like you aren't wasting your time.

The plot is a mess. I'll try to make this as brief as possible: Aaron Kwok is a burnt out cop whose true love disappeared without a trace ten years ago. Daniel Wu is an assassin who somehow knows Kwok's old flame. Ekin Cheng is a high profile lawyer who turns out to now be married to Kwok's old flame. Meanwhile, a crooked businessman must deal with a court case and the disappearance of his pop star son.Oh, and a mysterious left-handed vigilante is prowling the streets of Hong Kong. Yes, this is honestly the story of "Divergence" and it's confusing and muddled at best. The connection between the three characters is never fully developed until the very end, and even then it's so brief that you wonder why they made a movie about these guys at all. Benny Chan is obviously trying very, very hard to construct a neo-noir movie in the tradition of Milkway's "A Hero Never Dies" and "The Mission" but he fails to realize what made those movies so successful: compelling characters, taut storylines, gritty violence, and actual actors in the lead roles, not pop stars.

Now I know the whole "the good, the bad, the ugly" approach to writing a review is over-used and clichŽ. But how could I resist when we've got three big HK stars that fit all three categories, as well as the varying degrees of quality that the movie displays? The answer: I couldn't resist. Bear with me, please.

THE GOOD: Daniel Wu easily walks away with the best performance, and I'm sure his career will be the most unscathed. In recent years Wu has proven himself to be a young actor to watch with roles in "Gen-X Cops" and "The New Police Story", but it was his excellent turn in "Beijing Rocks" that really made me take notice. In this film, he plays a cold-blooded assassin; it was a role I was unsure he could pull off. Yeah, he was a bad guy in "The New Police Story" but he was psychotic and tortured in that film, not icy cool and refined like Hong Kong hitmen always are. Well, he pulls it off here and steals the movie. I'm not saying he's the next Chow Yun Fat but it's refreshing to see a young HK star bring this much subtlety and charisma to a role. This is another solid performance in what looks to be a promising career for Daniel Wu.

There's not a whole lot of action in "Divergence" but what's there is quite good. In particular, a martial arts fight between Daniel Wu and Aaron Kwok in a crowded market place that leads to "explosive" results. Also, when Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng finally face off at the very end - I'm not going to lie, to see the two Storm Riders meet again, the moment had weight for me. It had power. It felt like an honest-to-God epic confrontation between two larger than life movie stars. It was bliss to see the two commencing to beat the shit out of each other in the mud and rain, a la Mel Gibson and Gary Busey at the end of "Lethal Weapon". Of course, it's kind of cheap that Benny Chan is relying on the work of another director (Andrew Lau) to build hype for his own movie but oh well.

THE BAD: Ekin Cheng. Actually, Ekin Cheng isn't really in the movie a whole lot. So depending on how you feel about Ekin, you'll think it's a.) bad that he's not in this enough or b.) bad he's even it at all. The most I can say about his performance is that he looks well-manicured.

THE UGLY: Aaron Kwok. I think it's already been established that Aaron Kwok can't carry a movie. He's a pop star, not an actor, and it's ridiculous to throw him in front of the camera and expect that the audience is going to relate to him or think that there's even any hint of emotion behind his pretty boy looks. This guy is all surface, nothing underneath. He does well when given minor roles and kept as a supporting character but Benny Chan rests "Divergence" squarely on Kwok's shoulders and it's just too heavy for him to lift.

And I honestly don't know what Benny Chan was thinking when he directed some of these scenes. There's at least four or five moments where the camera is locked on Aaron Kwok's face as he sits in his car, crying or being emotionally devastated. The climax of these scenes comes when Aaron Kwok is sitting in his car and *sobbing as he eats a Fish Filet from McDonalds*. I'm not even making this up. When Benny Chan films all this in one long take, it's so absurd that you almost feel like he's trying to do a parody of HK action movies. But then why would he have the movie open with an attempted rapist being strangled by piano wire? Other parts of the movie are so dark that you know that Chan is being serious with Kwok's emotional meltdowns... unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to take these scenes seriously.

So, there you have it. Benny Chan needs to accept himself for who he is and make the kind of movies he's good at it. It's okay to try for him to branch out and try other things but he should be aware of his own means. Johnnie To and Patrick Yau had this kind of neo-noir territory mapped out years before and Benny Chan has a ways to go before he reaches their level, and first he needs to find a better script. That said, I don't think it's possible for Benny Chan to make a bad movie, or at the very least a bad movie that isn't entertaining. I'll give this film an extra half a point for Daniel Wu's performance, solid action scenes, and the nostalgic value of the Storm Riders reunion. "Divergence" is probably worth a viewing for die-hard fans but everyone else may not be able to keep their lunch down when Aaron Kwok cries as he eats his.

The problem rested with the fact that Divergence left me wondering what kind of movie it was supposed to be. Given the subplot about Suen (Aaron Kwok) and his obsession with finding his missing girlfriend, was it a drama? Given the subplot about Suen trying to wrap up a money laundering case after his witness is shot dead, was it a detective story? Given the subplot surrounding a possible vigilante killer, was it a suspense film? Given the subplot surrounding a hired killer trying to stay ahead of the cops and the thugs trying to kill him, was it an action movie? Given the subplot surrounding a missing pop singer, was it a mystery?

I don't place the fault on Chan's direction nor do I fault the production values - in fact, I laud the production of the film because it really was a slick looking movie with relatively good pacing. No, the fault was really with the story and its wayward tangents into all sorts of subplots - many of which were left hanging without closure.

Nevertheless, Chan does know how to craft some very good action scenes and he has certainly done so here. The chase scene between Suen and Coke (Daniel Wu) through the fish market was exciting - albeit laughable at one point when it looked like Kwok's pants were going to fall off. The final shootout between gangsters was nicely done.

Most of the lead actors also did okay with their roles. Ekin "The Hair" Cheng actually put his wooden "acting skills" to good use here as his role of a lawyer, To, required him to be subdued where the other characters around him were more colorful. DanielWu as the wild assassin showed what he does best - playing wild bad guys which, unfortunately, may be the road to typecasting. Angelica Lee was underused here but when she did show up, she looked radiant if not convincing as the main enigma in the story.

And then there was Aaron Kwok. As COF forum members know, I like to find any and every opportunity to laugh at this poseur, especially when he is involved with product advertisements. Well, I'm happy to say that I'm still not convinced otherwise of this man's talent - he still can't act. As Suen, the role demanded a very emotional element to come across, given his obsession with finding his missing girlfriend and his tense situation with closing the money laundering case. Unfortunately, Kwok couldn't pull it off, resorting instead to bawling like a big fuckingcrybaby in exposition scenes. Oh my God, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the penultimate scene with him bawling out loud - what a clown.

To sum it up, while an okay way to spend about 100 minutes, watching Divergence was like listening to my mother talk - both can go off in all sorts of directions without getting to any real point of anything.

The plot is a little hard to explain without spoling the movie, but I'll try my best here. Aaron Kwok plays a cop named Suen, who has been depressed since his girlfriend Fong (Angelica Lee) disappeared ten years ago. While transporting an informant to the station, a sniper named Coke (Daniel Wu) takes out the informant, who was supposed to testify against a crooked businessman, Chung (played by Gallen Lo). Chung's lawyer To (Ekin Cheng, who cut his hair and donned glasses to, I suppose, look smarter) heads to court to unfreeze Ching's assets, so Chung can pay off his debts. Even after he is kicked off the force after a bothced attempt to capture Coke, Suen is still obsessed with arresting Chung, and takes to shadowing To in order to dig up evidence. Shockingly, To's wife looks exactly like Fong, and so Suen's obsession kicks into overdrive, which leads to a series of confrontations with both his enemies as well as the demons in his past.

When you add in subplots about a guy going around strangling people with wire, Chung's missing son, Coke's dealings (and double-crosses) with his "agent" (Ning Jing), and Suen's psuedo-father-son relationship with the head of the missing persons bureau (Eric Tsang), things get more than a bit complicated, and that's Divergence's main problem. While I admire a film in this day and age of dwindling output from Hong Kong and more reliance on simpler audience-friendly fare to get the patrons in the seats, it feels like the film-makers tried to squish three hours of content into ninety minutes. Perhaps it was because screenwriter Ivy Ho is better known for her more dramatic work like Comrades: Almost a Love Story and Benny Chan is a much more "commerical" director, with projects like Gen-X Cops under his belt. Divergence just never seems to fully know its' way -- is it a character-driven police flick, or a bullets-and-blood-filled shootout picture?

Each part of the equation is actually done well; it's just that they never seem to fully mesh together. For instance, it was very easy to buy Aaron Kwok in the action scenes. Of particular note is a brawl he has with Daniel Wu, which, outside of Jet Li's Danny the Dog (aka Unleashed), marks some of the best on-screen fighting I've seen this year. But, man, this guy really cannot act. I could tolerate him in the quieter scenes where he's supposed to be sullen, but in later scenes where he is supposed to come off as emotional, it looks like he's trying to pass a kidney stone, instead of being sad for the love he has lost. Kwok's performance is a good analogy for the film as a whole -- there are parts that represent some of the best Hong Kong cinema has to offer, but there are some others which remind the viewer of exactly why Hong Kong movie studios are only putting out about one-fourth of the productions that they did back in the "golden age" of the late 1980's to the early 1990's.

Despite the schizophrenic nature of Divergence, I still enjoyed it. Like I said before, the good parts are very good. Besides the Kwok/Wu fight, there is a solid shootout near the end of the film, so I think action fans will be satisfied here. On the dramatic side, Daniel Wu puts in an excellent performance. That statement might surprise some people, but keep in mind that Wu won a Hong Kong Film Award with his performance in last year's Jackie Chan "comeback" picture, New Police Story, which was directed by Benny Chan -- though, personally, I thought Wu did a better job in Derek Yee's excellent One Nite in Mongkok, and his work for New Police Story was selected more for that movie's success at the box office and the simple fact that it was a Jackie Chan film. A Jackie Chan movie not winning a few Hong Kong Film Awards is like me scoring a hat trick in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals -- it ain't gonna happen.

At any rate, a lot of people don't like Daniel Wu's work, due to his "pretty boy" looks and mis-handling of Cantonese at times, but he is one of the few young actors that has steadily improved, at least in my book. Sure, Wu's has had his share of clunkers, but it never feels like he just memorized his lines ten minutes before he started shooting because he was too busy making a commerical for Ex-Lax or Pocki sticks or breast cream or whatever the hell else most Hong Kong stars will slap their names on to pay the bills these days. Wu actually seems to like gettng into his roles, and fire like that is where I would like to see the future of acting in Hong Kong movies going towards, rather than companies like EEG planting every new pop star in a movie just to use publicity to cash in for a quick buck. And it is really on the strength of Daniel Wu's performance, along with some tight action and a story that's a step above your usual Hong Kong crime picture, that I recommend Divergence. While it might not be saying too much in this time of box-office stiffs and critical failures like Where is Mama's Boy, Divergence is the best Hong Kong film I've seen so far this year.