| Alain | 2 | |
| Archibald | 3 | From comedy to pessimistic thriller, or how a bunch of cops give in to corrupti... |
The Tigers is a typical two-two time movie like we often see in Hong-Kong. It all begins like a classic police comedy and ends up darker than ever.
You follow a lambda cop team who live their peaceful little lifes until the day when two of them give in to corruption or rather to easy money which is gonna ruin everything. Between those corrupted and those who keep silent by friendship, those who endorse and those who become envious, the tensions are going to seep in until it makes the team implode and attracts suspicions from the internal affairs (not infernal affairs...what, you saw Andy Lau and Tony Leung and that's it ?...)
The cast is of course one of the main charms of the film, and that quite rightly. Indeed, Andy Lau Tak-Wah and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai compose the comic (and corrupted) duet of the team and seems to get along pretty well while Leung Ka-Yan is really convincing and from times to times, even carries the movie alone in his role of a chief torn apart between his morality and his faithfulness toward his men. 
The film is directed by Eric Tsang Chi-Wai who bet on simpleness despite an interesting shot try during the scene when the police of the police interrogate our famous tigers one after another. The soundtrack is rather poor and not well-edited except for the nice Andy Lau's song.
In Brief, from comedy to police drama, The Tigers discomfits by its gradual tone change linked to the sinking of this CID cop team into corruption. In spite of a risky direction and a second-rate soundtrack, the very good cast and this dark theme make of it a poignant movie.
