The Hong Kong action movie has a distinctive love of guns since the evolution of the genre brought about by the “Heroic Bloodshed” genre from the mid to late 1980's. Bullets would be fired in slow motion, with two handed gunplay exhibiting an almost fetishistic coolness by the leads as the screen would turn crimson. “Double Tap” would be the ultimate extension of this with its central characters obsessing over the speed and accuracy of their weaponry. The first of a loose trilogy featuring Alex Fong's policeman Miu Chi-shun, it is the action movie as psychodrama.
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Rick (Leslie Cheung) is a gun expert who spends his life modifying them to achieve a faster draw along with accuracy. Considered one of the best, he had recently retired from competition until policeman Miu Chi-Shun (Alex Fong) tempts him back. Before a winner can be declared, one of Miu Chi-shun's colleagues loses it and wields a gun begging for others to kill him so his family can receive a payment upon his death. With Miu Chi-shun reluctant to draw, it is Rick who kills him when he targets his girlfriend Colleen (Ruby Wong). Disappearing afterwards, Rick returns three years later, as the prime suspect in a series of murders where the victims have been meticulously shot using a double-tap technique. As it is revealed that Rick has mentally deteriorated because of the events prior, he and his policeman counterpart must face off to find out ultimately who is the fastest.
One of the tragedies of the early death of Leslie Cheung was that his roles at the time were becoming more challenging. “Double Tap” has a flaw at its heart in there is a lack of depth in terms of characterization and so relies on the performers to elevate the material. From the start his character is a bit “off”. We don't really get too much detail into his personal life but from what we are shown, he appears a relative loner apart from his relationship with Colleen. Guns appear to be is life and an obsession with being the faster seems to dominate. In essence, we have a character designed despite his earlier “heroics” wired to blow at some juncture. There is one crucial reveal in that he enjoyed the act of killing but that is then just left at that before the film moves on three years.
Now you could argue also that the reason for the lack of characterization is that this obsession leaves nothing else to add. Look at Alex Fong's Miu Chi-shun. All we get is a snapshot into his life, a wife that is uninterested in his gun hobby and what appears to be a marriage that is just existing. The only thing that seems to interest them is this love of guns. Miu Chi-shun is shown to have a love of competition and a desire to be the best, which means competing against Rick. Yet this drive is not seen in Rick until the incident that triggers his blood lust. This is where the flaw exists. When we see Rick three years later, he is clearly tormented by the fact he enjoys the killing and several scenes show him on the edge of mental collapse. Yet there is no real explanation on how he moved to becoming essentially an assassin. We are just meant to accept it and go with the flow. It is to Leslie Cheung's credit that he makes an interesting character out of the cold Rick. His eyes tell more of a story than the script does, bloodshot and weary. He seems tired of life which tragically only a couple of years later would be prophetic. Alex Fong seems to have inherited Danny Lee's role as go-to person for playing policemen. His is a less interesting part. Positioned as the mirror to Rick since he maintains a level of morality, it's an underwritten part which he does his best with.
Ruby Wong was always one of Hong Kong's more underrated actresses. A regular in Johnny To productions, she brings life to the torn Colleen. Clearly in love with Rick but challenged by the life he now chooses to live, it is again a character that could have benefited from more depth but she does well with what she has to offer, as does Vincent Kok who may as well have had a target on his forehead from the beginning in his comic relief\doomed supporting cast role.
The action sequences are sharply edited with the accuracy of the combatants making them more unusual than the standard bullet spraying than would normally be seen in the heroic bloodshed movies. That particular genre even gets referenced in the final showdown in the cinema auditorium. The double-tab shootings make each bullet more impactful and whilst stylishly shot, it is the emotional impact that resonates. Vincent Kok's demise in particular stands out due to the reactions of Rick and Colleen, respectively. What we have ultimately is a gun range duel opened to encompass an entire city. The pacing is steady and builds nicely as it heads to a conclusion.
The timings within the film intrigue, with the initial events taking place around the 1997 handover and subsequent action in 2000. There are a couple of references to it without going into too much social context. With the handover being a frequent driving force of social and economic anxiety within plot threads, to see it dealt with matter of fact, post the event, is rather unusual. With a credit for four script writers, the narrative is rather threadbare, but this is like the action stripped down to the essentials. Bruce Law who would achieve better critical success two years later with Leslie Cheung's final feature “Inner Senses” had already proven a good actors director with “Viva Erotica” and it is just unfortunate that he never got to have a massive consistency of work as showed capability in variety of genres.
“Double Tap” is an action thriller stripped down to the basics like one of the guns its character's essentially fetish over. Whilst there is a lack of depth in the overall narrative, it makes up for it in solid action and good performances across the board that elevates the production into one of the more interesting action movies of the turn of the millennium.
