Killing is my business and business is good! Well, not really for professional hitman Bart (Eric Kot). He finds very little work and when it does come along there's barely any money in it. After a job involving not only shooting but filming, Bart further expands the concept by having a director tag along as he can't do double duty. He picks avid movie fan and aspiring director Chuen (Cheung Tat-Ming) and their collaboration is an instant smash. They dub their service "You Shoot, I Shoot", creates merchandise for their well-paying clients and Chuen therefore closes in on his goal of directing his own indie feature, starring Japanese porn star Michiko (Higuchi Asaka) that he also has a crush on...

Far from a subtle filmmaker at this point, until he switched fun for drama instead (starting with Beyond Our Ken), Edmond Pang and for that matter cohort Vincent Kok either came up with an instant idea that meant a floodgate of clever creativity or ideas had been piling up inside for quite some time. No difference in effect. Clear is that they've echoed the mantra "write what you know" and being active in the business (1*), they've seen its decline and the real world around them crumbling financially too. So being movie fans and full of concerns, Pang opens You Shoot, I Shoot in tough, gritty, dark and flashy manners, having Eric Kot looking like Alain Delon and mechanically executing his victim. All's well in the killing business until Peter Kam's music stops dead and Eric Kot's Bart is faced with the prospect of not getting paid. Estate investment by his client has taken its toll and bizarre ideas such as having Bart kill the client instead or the client taking his life for the insurance money represents comforting signs for Pang's take on the material. First he's very able to switch gears but he awakens an audience that likes to be rewarded in comedies even! You Shoot, I Shoot indeed is local, black satire portrayed by a debut director out to pour his all onto the screen. Correctly so as he shouldn't have expected to make more movies after this. Taking your life matters for granted is a crime.

It's therefore no surprise then that Pang employs animation techniques, still montages to express character's current train of thoughts complete with Stereo sounds across the soundscape and while it may sound like headache-inducing overkill by someone who has no clue, much of the satire and comedic effect of the film stems from writers knowing not to obscure their message because they are good messengers in fact. Pang and Vincent Kok aim for deadpan absurdities within their love letter to a cinema that simply can be better and their love for the land they walk on is as evident. Drawing comparisons to the fact that actors have to treat this profession as a secondary one while branching into other areas, this is a notion Bart has to ponder if he wants to survive in his business. While he doesn't take on the offer to rape for money, bringing in another dimension to his killing via the use of a camera is representative of a creativity the Hong Kong people, within the cinema biz or not, must embrace. Simply embracing won't have you stand a chance. You must follow through on your dedication as best you can and yes indeed, it all forms a straight line to the modern state of Hong Kong cinema. A rushed schedule doesn't mean a rushed feel the character of Chuen argues and Pang proves (and has proven subsequently) to be a bit of a master working with time constraints of the grave kind. No different here.

Superbly delightful in the interaction between killer Bart and his repressed, aspiring director Chuen, Pang and Kok's style of humour lies in the off-beat situations, with reactions, big or small, clicking to terrific effect. There's highlight reel scenarios on display within just the right amount of exaggerated filmmaking and in particular the dark humour registers well. Especially the fact that the clients of Bart's are treating the murders as ordering a late night snack. It's THAT common but would these be citizens closing their eyes in front of the economic reality? Certainly and true for all classes even though Pang mostly communicates this desensitized behaviour via the upper class.

You Shoot, I Shoot is top notch, clever filmmaking from minds that hits a right mind (me being that particular subject) but some dips in quality sees Pang not being able to distribute his material evenly throughout the 90 minutes. While the film is adequately shot and scored, you do feel a lingering sense that fun ideas for instance by composer Peter Kam are merely touched upon due to the crammed schedule. Also not totally inspiring as it definitely feels low even for this new filmmakers is a scene where Bart's future mother- and father in-law gets high on weed. We're not talking a huge dip in quality and with sights of Lam Suet and Tats Lau as rival killer filmmakers offering discounts and free killings for every 30th, we're thankfully back in inspired territory. Inspired in the sense that few are actually making funny comedies and comedies that are clever to boot. We're not spoiled and thankfully Pang's final scenario at a restaurant begins adding upon what is very much universal truths about the nature of filmmaking.

Stuck with extras with their own idea of characters despite being just extras and multiple producers messing about with your vision, Pang puts forth a very fun but potentially dangerously stale joke involving pigeons. The producers not in tune with movies of today insist they have white doves (pigeons spray painted white) to enhance the climactic killing scene and it's really Pang's frustration out there. A frustration that never seemed to occur as soon as he got a chance to make films. You Shoot, I Shoot is therefore awfully well realized for a debut feature and bumps along the way (including a romance subplot that never is taken seriously anyway) doesn't greatly affect the final tally. As a bonus, Pang utilizes leads Eric Kot and Cheung Tat-Ming very well, creating a double act of stern, callous, bored killer vs. whiny film geek respectively. Bart symbolizes the quick shoot director who just wants a (killing) scene dealt with so he can claim his paycheck. Chuen on the other hands sees his chance to make a mark on the cinema map by being thorough when working underground and quick. It is the clearest line you can draw to director Edmond Pang and for good reasons as You Shoot, I Shoot ended up injecting Hong Kong cinema with something it needed. Fun with streaks of thought. No wonder the audiences passed but thank god Pang has remained in this climate, persevering movie after movie. It started here though and he's barely started.

(1) Pang mainly as a writer but also novelist. His Fulltime Killer was adapted into the 2001 Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai of the same name. Vincent Kok has directing, producing, writing and acting on his resume. Notables include helming Gorgeous with Jackie Chan and co-starring opposite Stephen Chow in The God Cookery.