Writer: Casey Chong

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Watch this if you liked: “Petaling Street Warriors”

Following the success of the period martial arts comedy "Petaling Street Warriors" in 2011, director Sampson Yuen is back with another Petaling Street-based movie. Except this time, his latest movie, "Bullets Over Petaling Street" is set in the modern-day period.

"Bullets Over Petaling Street" stars model-turned-actress Debbie Goh as a movie star named Angel, whose boyfriend Mavis (Steve Yap) is the leader of the Yi Qi Triad. When Mavis is shot by a hired assassin, Cat Eyes (Cheryl Lee), he decides to fake his own death and suggests someone else within his triad society to take over his position. Nobody dares to become the new Triad leader until a series of arguments ends up with Angel being accidentally chosen to take the lead.

While the title and the premise of this movie sounds like a lot of fun, the overall execution is lacklustre. Sampson Yuen's and Ho Shih Phin's direction is fairly energetic, but they are all style with little substance. Even the plot, which tries so hard to blend action, comedy, drama and romance together, is mostly a bloated mess.

However, the movie is not a complete disaster. Lead actress Debbie Goh proves to be a real sport here. Either watching her get physical with some of her convincing fight scenes, looking sexy as a mesmerizing eye candy, having fun fooling around with her character or turning all dramatic in some of her more serious moments, Goh manages to nail her versatile performance with relative ease.

The rest of the cast are equally competent, with decent performance from Chen Han Wei as Angel's ex-boyfriend, Xie Da Xiang. William San delivers quite a show playing a flamboyant, if a tad over-the-top character as the arrogant leader of 4896, Sa Pao. Xie Da Xiang's finicky mother Jun Po, Singaporean actress Irene Ang - best known as Rosie in TV's "Phua Chu Kang" - does what she can to make her limited screen time worthwhile. On the plus side, this reviewer is surprised with Irene Ang's rare attempt to speak some of her dialogues in Cantonese! Even though her Cantonese accent is noticeably imperfect, but at least she manages to nail it quite convincingly. Last but not least; are KK Wong and Cheryl Lee as two rival assassins, who quite interestingly, spend most of their time interacting with each other through their body language and voiceover narration.

Watch this only for its playful cast or better yet, keep your expectations low for "Bullets Over Petaling Street" and you'll have a decent movie experience.

Cinema Online, 13 February 2014