Hong Kong's Pang Ho-Cheung has lived something of a charmed cinematic life. Still in his low thirties the writer director has turned out a string of popularly beloved and critically acclaimed hits, putting together a collection of awards and accolades that many twice his age would be envious of. He's shown he can handle comedy and drama equally well and the future is bright for him. And so when rumors began to circulate about troubles surrounding the production of his latest film Exodus, rumors he denies, the hope was he could overcome his first significant burst of adversity. Whether those rumors are true or not one thing is not in question, Exodus is the first major is-fire of his still-young career.
Simon Yam is Tsim, a twenty year veteran of the Hong Kong police force whose career stalled out after he tried - and failed - to blow the whistle on a case of police brutality in his early days. Balcklisted for his efforts he has been passed over for promotion numerous times and is still one of the lowest men on the pole, his days filled manning a desk and filing reports despite his many years of faithful service. Tsim's life changes one day when a colleague asks for a favor: his girl's birthday is that night, would Tsim mind taking a statement from a recent arrest so that he can leave early? Tsim grumbles but agrees, taking charge of the potty mouthed blue collar worker busted for sneaking into a women's washroom with a video camera. It should be a simple enough statement to take, it is clearly a peeping Tom case, but the perp refuses to play along. He insists that he was not peeping but gathering evidence, evidence of a shadowy secret network of women planning to eliminate all the men on the planet. Tsim would have thought the man a crank if he were not so insistent and Tsim's curiosity is piqued even further after the man changes his story following a visit from a female colleague. Could he possibly be telling the truth?
Exodus has a premise that, on the surface at least, just can't fail. It's smart, it's funny, it has all the makings of a blackly comedic deconstruction of the war of the sexes. But Pang makes an utterly bizarre decision with his material, he opts to play it completely, one hundred percent straight through the first ninety plus minutes of the film's run time. Suspension of disbelief will only take you so far and it's not quite far enough to go where Pang wants you to, which is the first and likely fatal flaw. But this flaw is further compounded by Pang seriously underwriting the part of Tsim, a shocking situation considering Pang's writing typically sparkles, but there it is: Yam is given virtually nothing to do but drift quietly from scene to scene, he has little if anything to give his character flavor and the film never builds much in the way of credible tension.
With the final five minutes of the film Pang suddenly seems to get it, the tone shifts slightly and a dryly funny, mordant sense of humor gets the chance to peek through. Suddenly the audience is engaged and laughing but it's just too little too late. By shifting gears so late Pang leaves the main body of the film feeling like nothing more than a ninety minute set up for a five minute punch line, offers little to the audience beyond a glimpse of just how good this film could have been if he'd taken this approach throughout rather than just at the end. Fascinating premise, wrong headed execution. Here's hoping for a quick rebound.