Decent acting and setup, story's quite interesting. Ending twist doesnt really make sense, though it already hinted in the movie, should be better ending before the last part.

another really good performance from Aaron Kwok, the female lead was really good too. overall all the acting was good or above. the director has a pretty good eye and captures some moments really really well, so well i would consider it world class. thats why the movie left me a little unfulfilled. the problem w most Chinese and korean movies is that they have situations in movies that are so improbable that it couldn't happen in real life. in there is the problem..you have a pretty good movie grounded in real life and then throw in a few improbable scenarios that couldn't happen in real life and for me, thats really annoying. i've turned off movies like that..but for some reason this movie wouldn't let me turn it off. if they didn't have the few dumb scenarios this movie would've have been somewhere in the 7 star range. but...what do i know...anyways...i still totally enjoyed the movie. overall...a fairly well done movie about redemption. i'm sure that there'll be people who will watch this movie and shed a tear or two. Fellinis' " Nights of Cabiria " gets a couple of minutes in this movie, so we know that the young director is also a movie buff and like i mentioned in the above...there's some gorgeous gorgeous shots in this movie...the scene where Aarons character is at an old moviehouse was my favorite...it was shot with such love. not a highly highly recommend but nonetheless i will still recommend it as there's a lot more good then bad in this movie.

I ended up about 1/3 of the way through just ff parts as it seemed to drag on w/fairly predictable interchanges between a gambler & a hooker & the usual gambling problems along w/the usual baddies. But, there is actually an unseen relationship between the two that comes out toward the end which improves the storyline so pay attention as you watch. I think if hints of this relationship were woven in earlier it might have helped, that & earlier better character connection w/the viewer, but then that might lessen the ending. Oh well!