Running Out of Time

What makes TIME tick is the slickness of the characters: Wah only has a few weeks to live, suffering from a form of incurable cancer, and he finds himself paired with police negotiator Sang in his final act toward redemption. Redemption, however, already has its price tag on it, as Wah's condition quickly deteriorates, and he must rely on an unlikely friendship with Sang to help make end-meet-end before meeting his Maker.

These two actors make the picture work, despite some clunky dialogue (especially clunky in the English-dubbed version, so be warned). Their chemistry onscreen elevates TIME to higher levels of interest for the viewer as you don't know who to root for here: the cop being hustled by the shylock, or the shylock living out his last few days trying to mend life's wrongs.

Regardless of whom you root for, RUNNING OUT OF TIME is a great achievement -- a welcome twist to the cop/crook formula -- that gives you some wonderfully unexpected laughs as the story unfolds.

Running out of Time, is a Hong Kong action movie staring Cheung (Andy Lau) and Inspector Ho (Lau Chin Wan).

Cheung is a handsome young burglar with Terminal cancer and three days to live. Ho is a bored police officer determined to apprehend him.

Cheung, in an effort to make his last days on earth worthwhile, is determined to avenge his father's death, by stealing a large, improbably blue diamond, and framing his enemy for the deed. During the course of events, he has run-ins with police officer Ho and a beautiful woman he meets on the bus.

Regretfully most of the action consisted of scenes where the bad guys chase Ho, and scenes of Cheung crawling through air ducts, (its amazing how many person-sized air ducts there are in high security buildings), or scenes with Cheung messing with security cameras.

This movie failed for me because I kept expecting to explore Cheung's character more deeply. (If he was dying of cancer, why did he wait so long to seek revenge? Why was he so determined to frame the bad guys? What was his motivation for baiting Ho?)

So many of these questions were unanswered, and for this reason, I was left feeling unsatisfied with this movie.

Inspector Ho( Lau Ching Wan) is a police negotiator who's playing cat-and-mouse with the thief Cheung( Andy Lau). Cheung robs a hong kong high rise, but the reason why is unclear.
As Ho begins to investigate, the audience gets to know lil better too, but not too much. Cheung is doing this because his dying day is near, and he's using the time he got left to avenge for his father....

Sure, there are some plot holes, but how many HK movies can you point out with no plot holes??? especially genre like this?
however, Andy did an awesome job at playing the role of Cheung.
The style, pacing, actiong, and direction is simply great.

Andy won best actor for 19th annual Hong Kong film awards.