Simon Lui has made some interesting films in his career – he starred in a few of the nasty Cat III horror films in the Troublesome Night series as well as plenty of action and comedy films made over the last ten years, he wrote and produced the interesting Sleeping With The Dead, and now he turns his eye to directing with Escape From Hong Kong Island, a new comedy starring Jordan Chan of Men Suddenly In Black.

Chan plays Raymond, a sleazy stockbroker who finds himself without a job one day when his boss suddenly fires him. He leaves the office and gets robbed, but things look up when he lines up a new job across the harbor. The problem is, he doesn't have his wallet as it's been stolen so he can't hire a taxi or even pay to get on the ferry. With his 5:00pm deadline fast approaching, Raymond is going to have to really hustle to get his way to his new place of employment, and seeing as he's a bit of a jerk, it should come as no surprise when very few people are eager to help him out along the way.

Chan's great at playing the scum ball in this film. Whether he's making the moves on his 'supposed' friend's girlfriend or cutting someone off, Chan makes it look easy to be such an ass. As such, it's hard to really feel any sympathy for his plight because he's getting what he really does deserve in this film, and therein lies the moral: do unto others as you would have them do unto you – a simple and perhaps rather cliché adage but an accurate one none the less, no matter how many times you hear it. The laughs come from watching the whole of Hong Kong basically dump on Raymond all at the same time in this one eight hour period he goes through. Raymond does get what he deserves, but how much is too much? How bad will things get for him before the film's end credits roll?

Lui does a decent job behind the camera and the film is well paced in that it doesn't take long to get going nor does it suffer from any overly talky parts or any unfunny parts. At the same time, the schtick does get a little old in the last half of the movie and you can almost predict what's going to happen to Raymond as the movie progresses, meaning it borders on predictable at times. The music used in the film tends to be a little too much at times though, and while it's obviously there to let us know when the comedy is going to happen, too much of it goes a long way towards making the amusing rather tiresome.

Overall, though, Chan's performance is good enough to inspire a few good laughs and the movie is worth a look mainly for that reason alone. For a debut directorial effort, Escape From Hong Kong Island isn't half bad and Simon Lui shows some real potential, he just doesn't completely rise to it with this film.

Video:

The anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen transfer looks pretty sharp. There's a nice high level of detail present in the film and the colors look very nice. The biggest problem is that there is some heavy edge enhancement going on throughout the movie that does prove to be a little bit distracting but once you get used to it the movie plays through well enough. Print damage is minor, basically a little speck here and there, and mpeg compression isn't a problem.