Michael Wong plays Miles Ma (was the terrible pun of the title intentional ?) , a police officer leading an investigation into pirated VCD's. He misses his dead wife terribly but manages an on/off relationship with Internal Investigations officer Janis Chan (Cecilia Yip). When a police raid, lead by Miles, unexpectedly uncovers a heroin racket the gangsters responsible become keen to remove the thorn in their side. Aided by a police insider the triad bosses manage to frame Miles for the rape and attempted murder of a prostitute with such a great amount of evidence that Janis finds herself torn. However she is persuaded by Miles to carry out her own investigation which leads to some suprising results.

I'm sure that there's a good actor fighting to get out of Michael Wong ( his performances in the TV version of 'Once A Thief' and the Van Damme actioner 'Knock Off' showed that he can be quite good) but sadly it doesn't manage it here. The English dialogue scenes, which account for at least half of the movie, seem more than a little rushed and this is most likely the problem. Given that English is not their first language, Cecilia Yip and Moses Chan don't do that bad but when Michael and the other Western actors start stumbling over their lines as well it makes some scenes almost tortuous to watch. One in particular, near the start of the movie, where Michael and Moses have an overly long conversation in English seems more than a little strained. Hong Kong film makers are notorious for not spending too much time on acting scenes but when the movie is 95% acting and only 5% action then clearly a better balance needs to be struck. It's a shame really, because Miles Apart did have some good ideas and a reasonably well thought out plot with a couple of surprises for the audience but despite that the film never really manages anything more than a pedestrian pace.

It's also a shame that a good cast couldn't have been put to better use. Simon Lui is woefully underused.

The one action scene that comes at the end of the movie is quite well choreographed but has a terrible rock soundtrack behind it which ruins any of the tension that has built up. Worse though is the final one on one fight that comes right at the end between Miles and the main villain. The plot device used for this is so corny I couldn't believe it; with the villain surrounded Miles persuades every policeman to hold back so that he can mete out justice man to man. This also has to be the lamest hand to hand fight scene I have ever witnessed in a Hong Kong film and has more in common with 'Starksy and Hutch' than the most exciting film industry in the world. Very disappointing to say the least.

I couldn't really recommend this to anybody but the most die-hard Michael Wong fan and would certainly steer anybody new to Hong Kong cinema away from this - it would put them off for life.