Who's The Monster?Fans of Nicholas Tse would definitely not want to miss his first theatrical outing since that infamous Edison scandal, which also took another victim in Beast Stalker director Dante Lam's Sniper movie. Tse gives one of his better performances that called for more drama than brawn, and he brings the pain of his character out well, as a guilt-ridden cop who is looking for an opportunity to redeem himself and seek forgiveness from Zhang Jing Chu's top legal eagle role, but still a flower vase one nonetheless.
Veteran Liu Kai-Chi supports Tse very well here and makes the latter look good with some assured performance, and almost steals the thunder from Tse. But Nick Cheung equals Tse in bringing some gravitas to his role as a sympathetic hit-man dealt with a lousy hand from Fate. You'll probably grow to like his character rather than Tse's, as he's stuck with treading the thin grey line between good and evil, having to do what he does in order to look after his bedridden wife, and himself not in the best of health.
While it has many elements similar to that of Connected, given that they both come from the same producers, have the mobile phone so intricately tied to the plot, and having to deal with a kidnapping, Beast Stalker suffered from some overly long dramatic moments, which prevented it from becoming a tight crime-thriller that it probably aspired to be. Nonetheless it's still a commendable addition to that Hong Kong genre, and could have become great if it had shorn off some fat from its runtime.
You can read my review of Beast Stalker at movieXclusive.com by clicking on the logo below.
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