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Goddess of Mercy. Hong Kong 2004. Directed by Ann Hui

A beautiful female cop An Xin is fighting against drug war in China. An Xin has also an affair with man called Tienjun, but one day she falls in love with interesting fellow, Mao. Unfortunately Mao hasn't told everything about his past and present to her, and An Xin has to face the fatal consequences on duty.

This summary above does not tell the whole truth about the plot in Goddess of Mercy. And there's a reason: otherwise sympathetic characters suffer of too complicated storyline, which makes them crucially uninteresting in the very end. Goddess of Mercy (aka Yu Guanyin) simply tells us a story of woman with (very) bad luck with choices she makes. In fact, most of the twists and turns are original and believable, but when all of it is crushed into less than two hours, comes an unfortunate effect that is fatal to overall feel and affection. And everything was fine for the first hour.

Vicki Zhao (of Shaolin Soccer) is appealing actress to watch; she portrays the character of An Xin with professional touch. Also worth of mentioning is pop idol Nicholas Tse as Mao. Visually Goddess of Mercy looks very nice - especially the editing is top-notch. In other words : Goddess of Mercy will remain in my point of view as one of those "could've-beens" - otherwise really fine films, that have some importantly fatal elements that drop their value radically.

Director Ann Hui (who was co-responsible of Chow Yun-Fat breakthrough in 1981 film God Killers aka "Woo yuet dik goo si", among other respectable things ) is at her best in character direction; she is able to find the right expressions and moods of actors and actresses. Too bad that Goddess of Mercy either lasts too long or it's plot should have been simplified. Or then it's my brains that aren't capable to follow to story.