ronchucker This film is worth seeing solely due to Simon Yam's performance. While I picked it up on DVD because Ringo Lam directed it...it's a very minor film with little story, average action scenes and cheap special effects. Simon Yam doesn't have a lot of dialogue but he does get to play a very complex character. While he is ostensibly the bad guy, his basic humanity is omnipresent. His final scene in the film is especially memorable. It's too bad he's never achieved the worldwide success that other Ringo Lam actors have. He certainly acts circles around Mr. Koo. If the lead role of the suspect were played by someone else, such as Tony Leung or the late Leslie Cheung, then maybe the film would be more effective. Stick with City on Fire or the Prison on Fire films for vintage Ringo Lam. Even his first Van Damme film is better.

antartaud3 Ambitious, overwrought and sometimes incoherent, this film co- written and directed by Ringo Lam caves in under the weight of mistaken identities and double crosses. Though Lam is the more conventional film maker within the Hong Kong school of Hark and Woo, his style can be serviceable. The performances that Lam extracts from his actors are of notable realism, apparent even in the badly dubbed version I was saddled with, and Lam knows how to place a camera unobtrusively but intelligently within a drama. Most of "The Suspect" is of craftsman like quality, and while Lam struggles with the budgetary limits most Hong Kong directors face, his past work for Hollywood (Maximum Risk) has allowed him to give the film a photographic sheen and clarity not found in a lot of Hong Kong productions.The main problem, however, is a convoluted script that doesn't connect the dots. Within the story of shifting alliances, and told in a more classical form of film making, a certain amount of narrative clarity is needed. The plot becomes ludicrous at times, only further emphasized by Lam's straight faced and sober approach to the material. With a helicopter squad of mercenaries appearing out of nowhere to rescue the lead from a high speed police chase, the burning intensity of Woo or the giddy audaciousness of Hark is needed to pull the scene off. Unfortunately, Lam's middle of the road approach results in a competent but unremarkable action / drama film.

experten If you are looking for an excellent HK suspense movie, look no further: The Suspect is exciting from the beginning with the voice over full of feeling, through the chases to the action packed gunplay ending. You will never be bored, the story is unusually good (it is not a ripoff from Assassins as my friend Stefant21 stated in his review) and the pace is high. The beginning of the movie is not slow paced, as one reviewer stated, there is a lot going on throughout the whole movie but it is true that most of the gunplay occurs during the long and excellent ending.If you are only looking for gunplay and explosions you will be disappointed. Don't expect a so called heroic bloodshed movie even though the theme of friendship and loyalty is classic to the genre (see for instance The Killer). The Suspect is not so exaggerated as the movies of John Woo, the action and everything else in The Suspect is more realistic but you will still see some blodsquibs.The Suspect is masterfully directed and the acting is superb in spite of the fact that the actors have to speak a lot of english instead of only cantonese. For those of us that have seen him before it comes as no surprise that Simon Yam manages to make a big impression even though he is not on screen very much, but I was thrilled that the rest of the cast is also unusually good. The characters are multi layered, they are not cartoon figures either black or white and even the ruthless Simon Yam seems to have something good in him, he is not only ruthless and bad. The tone is serious throughout the movie, we don't have to suffer through any ridiculous HK humor. 10/10

gemstem Ringo Lam goes over the top in this movie, similar to Heat. The beginning of the movie is slow paced but picks up at high speed by the end of the movie. I highly recommend it to action fans who love John Woo. I find myself confused by the plot during the last stage but that's a minor problem.