FULLTIME KILLER

It's there in the Bible: if an artisan excels in his craft, even kings must bow to him. Meet Tok and O. They are very, very good at their craft. O is efficient and quick, acknowledged as the best. Tok is a showman, taking wild risks to display his panache, but always getting the job done. Tok and O are professional hit men, hired by triads and gangsters throughout Southeast Asia. In this underworld of violence and subterfuge, Tok covets the top spot, and probes the mysterious O's vulnerability through the master assassin's girlfriend Chin. But a Hong Kong detective, equally relentless, goes after both killers, in a city soon pocked with wall-to-wall gunfire and dizzying chases. FULLTIME KILLER is the latest high-octane plunge into pop gangster psychology from Hong Kong's action-cinema aesthete. Freely adapted from the 1998 best-selling novel by Edmond Pang, the film features reclusive assassin, O, living in an isolated world of crime and despair, compared with the flamboyant Tok (who re-enacts scenes from classic movies as he carries out his fatal tasks). Japanese heartthrob Takashi Sorimachi plays O, actor-producer Andy Lau portrays Tok, in this explosive blend of bullet ballet and kooky love story, crammed with references to other actions films and bathed in beautiful hues of orange and blue. (In Japanese, Taiwanese and Cantonese with English subtitles)