Thanks for the memories!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Best movie ever!

Blistering performances.

A police captain assigns his unit to help a colleague retrieve his gun, lost in an altercation with a street-gang, before a reporting deadline expires.Just as much as the style and the look, it's the choreography and orchestration - and the way To shuffles the characters and objects about on his late-night chessboard; and the sound-scapes, in addition to the glorious night-lit streets and skyline which delight almost to the extent that the opening restaurant confrontational, ultimately tragic, musical chairs and climactic set-piece shoot-out serve as mere book-ends for what comes between. Or even, as brief irritants.The characters don't particularly matter either - although there are some particularly wonderful-looking villains - because they're all just pawns for this visual, and aural feast.You've seen plenty of tyre-squealer car-chases - maybe you've seen too many of them; To's come up with a new angle: the cars that glide at intervals through city streets, unobtrusively, apparently disinterestedly, and almost noiselessly - perhaps just to get you thinking "now I wonder what they're up to'? A crime film where all the cars keep within the speed limit? Shurely shome mishtake? And then there's the kid on the bicycle: by the time of his third sighting you're wondering is he a midget gang member, or undercover cop - or afterhours drugs mule, even; and will it be his fate to be ripped apart with bullets, by all sides? How cruel could that be, for somebody so young? It's all about building tension, and keeping you on edge - or maybe filling in the spaces on that chessboard.There are some great scenes and ideas, too - of course: as with that opening restaurant scene where various customers get re-assigned according to their place in the hierarchy, and phone messages that we only later become privy to, have fatal consequences. Then there's the tense confrontational scene in the video-game arcade, with the array of flashing video screens vieing for our attention with a synchronised symphony of unanswered cell-phones; and there's the men in cages, bent over almost triple.Thematically, it reminds me of Kurosawa's 'Stray Dog' - and there may have been more than one scene of that classic referenced; visually; and to a certain extent narrative-wise, it reminded me of Scorsese's 'After Hours'. The boy on the bicycle reminded me of the boy in 'The Third Man', and also of 'M'. But these were only in passing: To obviously has his influences, but his style is all his own. And, sometimes, style matters.

PTU is undoubtly one of To's best work to date, to me, it's as good as The Mission, with a more developed Johny To touch in it. and for me the best John To film has to be Running Out Of Time. i'd like to point out that PTU is a Johny To's "personal" work, meaning that it's solely produced and distributed by his own production company - MilkyWay Image, and there have only been 2 other movies that are considered Milkyway Image films, or Johny To's personal works, one is 1999's Running Out Of Time, and one is The Misson, he's stated that he'd only make one in about every 3 years(numerous times), in his career he's done a lot of movies, but they are mostly block busters. so if you are interested in other movies by him, just know that they are not really the kind of movies he want to make.

I just finished watching the import dvd version of this film. A great Crime Drama. Simon Yam proves once again that his screeen presence is amazing. Check out the scene in the video game hall when a young Triad wannabe tries to cop a tough guy display towards Simon. Guess who wins? The movie flows very much like a Docu-Drama. The P.T.U. (Police Tactical Unit) is very much like the "beat cops" division. However, they all patrol in units of six. Like a platoon. You can feel the grit of the downtown streets of Hong Kong. This is one film to see. Also directed by Johnnie To: The Mission, Fulltime Killer. Both have Simon Yam. Another cool film about the P.T.U. is Big Bullet starring Lau Ching Wan and Anthony Wong Chau-sang.

spoiler by innuendoP.T.U. (for Police Tactical Unit) is director Johnny To's much publicised recent work. Comparison with To's classic The Mission is almost inevitable. P.T.U., unfortunately, does not measure up. The main problem could be that To tried too hard, not unlike Zhang Yimou with Hero.While Zhang tried to dazzle his audience with an overwhelming visual kaleidoscope, To was indulged in an attempt to impress his with mental sleight of hand. Both failed. What To has done is to play with every scene like a sleight of hand, building up mounting tension and suspense, culminating in..........nothing. On might say that this is precisely the point, to show the absurdity of the entire situation, a much ado about nothing piece of satire. Even granting that, this sleight of hand thing is still far overdone.This assertion comes out more clearly by comparison with The Mission, which is To's best work to-date. In The Mission, To used a simple plot as his vehicle to do the things he wanted to do: the characters, their interaction, the visual form, the mise-en-scene. Amidst all that, he had time to squeeze in one of the most inspired scenes: the five body guards languidly kicking around a crumbled piece of paper made into a ball while waiting for the big boss.P.T.U. is not a complete disaster. The sleight of hand does capture some attention, at least at the begining. Lam Suet's portrayal of the rather down-to-earth and somewhat comical character does a lot to brighten up the film.The original score by Chung Chi-wing also deserves some credit. Chung, unless I am seriously mistaken, is the one quite well know among people familiar with the local live theatre scene, being credited with a couple of very respectable local musicals.