Accident (2009)

The Brain (Louis Koo) leads a small team of assassins whose speciality is carefully arrange hits that look like accidents. After one job is successfully concluded an accident nearly takes out half of the team. The Brain knows all too well that accidents are sometimes meticulously planned, but who could want them out of the picture?

Unfortunately after an introduction to the team's master level accident choreography, subsequent jobs stop looking so much like acts of genius and more like contrived and convoluted schemes that really are more accident than assassination given how many unlikely events have to go exactly according to plan for them to succeed.

Releasing in the same year as Overheard, this was perhaps where the fashion for stylish techno thrillers starring Louis Koo began. Soi Cheang teams up with Milkyway Image, or perhaps vice versa, for a film that looks and feels quite on brand but which definitely isn't a Johnnie To film.

At 86 minutes the film can't really be accused of out-staying its welcome at least, setting up the situation and then letting it play out fairly economically. The premise is interesting enough that trying to figure out where things are going is entertaining even if ultimately the film isn't as clever as it would like to think it is, and the final denouement is sufficiently unpredictable that it doesn't feel like was a total waste of time getting to it.