Ho Cheung Ping may work in comedy, but he clearly has an understanding of what makes action movies tick. Men Suddenly in Black demonstrates his tremendous skill as a genre filmmaker as it goofily blurs the boundaries between slapstick comedy and police thriller. Walking in on the scene, say, wherein Cheung (Jordan Chan) desperately tries to avoid being spotted by his in-laws while drinking with an ex, a viewer could easily imagine, experiencing the slickly executed visual and musical cues, that his life was at stake. Playing the men's ringleader, Tin, Eric Tsang munches the scenery with flair, setting the tone for the over-the-top barrage of entertainingly re-contextualized cop movie clichés. There's irony involved in Ping's not-so-subtle satire, but also a more pungent subtext that stabs at the heart of cultural notions of masculinity. The team's behavior in the film is so ludicrous, not just because the melodramatic presentation emphasizes its silliness, but because we recognize an underlying sad truth in their mendacious machinations. The film's sexual politics seem unpleasantly retrograde initially, but develop a note of surprising complexity, as exemplified by the climactic kiss between Tin and his gone-to-seed high-school sweetheart (Maria Cordero). Undeniably silly, and somewhat distended at feature length, Men Suddenly in Black still offers a special treat for Hong Kong action fans who pick up on its myriad references.