It's superficially a nice story, but "Surveillance" doesn't really show Huang Jianxin at his best. It falls awkwardly between his two unique styles - the overt political symbolism and criticism of his early movies, and the sardonic warmth of his later movies - and ends up being a rather flat movie which doesn't genuinely engage the audience.
Huang's wonderful eye for detail sets him above his Chinese contemporaries in almost all his movies: there are some really enjoyable scenes here, but neither the social observation nor the plot are really enough to sustain a whole film.
Huang's wonderful eye for detail sets him above his Chinese contemporaries in almost all his movies: there are some really enjoyable scenes here, but neither the social observation nor the plot are really enough to sustain a whole film.