Review: Hong Kong auteur Johnny To injects hospital drama ‘Three’ with virtuoso shoot-em-up

Leave it to director Johnnie To to follow a 3-D musical comedy about corporate malfeasance with a movie even harder to classify. On the heels of last year’s “Office,” To now offers “Three,” a gritty medical drama that evolves into a tense tale of cops and gangsters — and does so with a naturalness and creative spark that only the Hong Kong action cinema maestro could manage.

Vicki Zhao plays Dr. Tong Qian, a pragmatic neurologist whose principles are tested when she gets caught between a rule-bending cop (Louis Koo) and a smug young crime boss (Wallace Chung). The latter’s been brought to the hospital with a head wound, but he refuses treatment because he knows it’ll be easier for his goons to spring him from an ER than a prison.

The characters move into place gradually, on an elaborate set that rivals the one in “Office” for its ingenious design, allowing the camera to move fluidly. As To explores the space, he and a team of screenwriters reveal the core trio’s flaws and secrets (and throw in some overly broad comic relief), before the story explodes into a visually stunning shootout.

That technically complex set piece — which lasts over 20 minutes — is the film’s main selling point. But as always with To, it matters that he takes time to deepen the characters and establish their habitat. Even during the gunfight, this always remains a character piece: a thoughtful, imaginative movie about stubbornly authoritarian professionals, protecting their territories.

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‘Three’

In Cantonese with English subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: AMC Atlantic Times Square; Monterey Park; AMC Puente Hills, City of Industry