Devil Face, Angel Heart 2002

Long [Daniel Wu], born with a disfigured face, and his brother [Lam Suet] as Kwan, work as assassins for the notorious Hong Kong triad boss known as Dinosaur [Philip Keung Ho-Man]. Dinosaur presides over a vast criminal empire that spans drugs, firearms, prostitution, human trafficking, and many other brutal enterprises. In Dinosaur’s mansion, his girlfriend Wendy [Gigi Lai] endures nightly pain as she is subjected to his cruel sessions, with Long quietly bearing the sight of her bruises. Wendy tells Long that the man she sleeps with every night is far scarier than he looks, and she urges him to leave Dinosaur with his brother if there is any chance of a safer life. Yet Long refuses, vowing instead to kill Dinosaur during a business trip to Taiwan, and Wendy hints that she could call in her uncle to bring them back to Hong Kong if they succeed.

Two police officers, Kent [Stephen Fung] and Dicky [Sam Lee], are assigned to investigate Dinosaur’s operations, but their pursuit is interrupted when Long and Kwan ambush them in the course of their inquiry, and Dicky is fatally wounded in the confrontation. The pursuit leads Dinosaur and his men to a Taiwanese sex club where they meet a client, and the tension escalates as Long and Kwan plan to strike. Dinosaur, pleased with the scene, orders his assassins to select their targets, including a feature girl known as Mei—the mistress who initially resists due to age but is overruled by Dinosaur’s force. Mei, who has faced a cruel world, is pulled into the danger as the room explodes with violence.

During the chaos, Long and Kwan move in, and the clients and the room’s other women are shot as Dinosaur watches. The moment of reckoning comes when Long finally confronts Dinosaur, slicing his throat with a knife as he pulls the trigger on himself and his attackers. In the aftermath, a driver shoots Kwan, and Long, trying to reach his brother, is driven into the harbor in a brutal turn of events.

Mei, who witnesses the aftermath, saves Long and helps him recover. She undergoes a transformation for him, and surgeons alter his facial tissues so he can pass as a normal man again. When Long wakes from his coma, Mei reveals a past steeped in hardship—she used to be a sex worker and learned the art of seduction to survive, even turning a wealthy relationship into a fortune. She trains Long and gives him a new identity: he returns to Hong Kong as Michael.

Back in Hong Kong, Michael enters the criminal world as a reluctant henchman, while Wendy has moved on with a new boyfriend and crime partner, Jimmy [Conroy Chan Chi-Chung]. The pair’s schemes catch the attention of their boss’s client, Bull, a dangerous figure who arrives at an Italian restaurant to close a deal. Bull’s ambush propels a chaotic night: Michael slips away with Wendy, and Jimmy is captured. Wendy is drawn into a dangerous game as Bull refuses to release Jimmy and demands a ransom. Michael devises a plan: have Wendy charm Bull, slip him a poisoned drink, and then use the moment to escape. Yet the plan unravels when Wendy discovers the chamber she’s backed into is a dead end, and Bull has not been poisoned. Bull orders Wendy’s team to violate her, but police intervene and arrest everyone involved.

In the film’s tense final act, Michael returns to Kent’s house, where he deliberately provokes Kent into shooting him in the chest, claiming that he wants to die in the hands of someone worthy. This culmination leaves the audience with a stark tableau of revenge, power, and the high cost of survival amidst Hong Kong’s criminal underworld.