Hoping to sustain a recent mini-resurgence of Hong Kong films through to lunar new year, Ying Chi-wen’s second feature is a silly, initially laboured but increasingly endearing comedy mashup. A remake of 2021 Taiwanese gangster film Treat or Trick, which is itself a do-over of 2004 Korean horror-comedy To Catch a Virgin Ghost, it manages to hit virtually every branch on the genre tree on the way down: Bad Boys buddy action comedy, dead wet girl Asian horror, knockabout Beijing opera farce, wuxia parody.
Yau Shing (Hong Kong singer Hins Cheung) is a hotshot point man in Ray-Bans for So Good security firm. Told to escort a consignment of diamonds across the city, he fails to anticipate his driver Jelly (Kaho Hung) hightailing it with the bling, which also cheeses off some bungling triads out to nab it. So the gang boss orders his minion Monk (Michael Ning), as well as Yau Shing and rookie recruit Penguin (Jeffrey Ngai Tsun Sang), to the off-the-grid village where Jelly has holed up on his way to Malaysia.
