The droll opening, set in a restaurant where the pecking order is rigorously observed, gives way to a complicated but uninvolving cat-and-mouse game between the police and rival gangs.

Characterisation, always a hit and miss affair in To's films, is deliberately rather thin. Instead, To and his cinematographer, Cheng Siu Keung, make the greasy, near-abandoned streets of the Hong Kong capital come alive

It's an oddity in some ways, and its brief appearance in cinemas can only be the precursor to a DVD release, which is how it will mostly be seen. It's a smart, sharp piece of work, however big the screen.

Mafiosos, street thugs, high-ranking detectives, and beat cops are all one and the same: rival factions vying for control over unstable grounds. This bleak vision of turn-of-the-century politics is no clearer than in To’s PTU .