Hold Up Down (2005)

As with so many Sabu films this one starts with a bank robbery and then goes off on a tangent or ten. The bank robbers stash the money in a coin locker then promptly lose the key to a busker and somehow end up being chased by a pair of dirty cops and an unlucky priest.

This was the second film Sabu was hired to direct as a promotion for the boy band V6, whose members take the main roles in the film. As with HARD LUCK HERO the film suffers from the leads not being particularly capable actors, and it feels a bit lacklustre as it runs through a series of Sabu tropes such as unlikely coincidences and fantasy sequences without much enthusiasm.

There are some new ideas in there amongst the familiar, and the film is somewhat saved by a final act that takes things in a typically unpredictable direction and includes a surprisingly impressive fight scene, not something you can say about many Sabu films. It comes across as something of an homage to some classic Hong Kong films, and left me feeling more well disposed towards the film than I had been up to that point.

This is certainly far from Sabu's best work but there are a few touches that save it from being a waste of time.

I guess Sabu realised he had taken this style of film about as far as he could since his next film (Dead Run) was a complete about face and I don't think he ever returned to the sort of absurdist comedies that were his signature up to this point.