Jack (Koo), King (Cheng), and his sister, Queen (Yang) head up the Bad Boy Detective House (yes, really, that’s what it’s called). They specialize in finding missing persons; most specifically, a client’s first love. One day, two men—one a young man of little means (Chan), the other a Taiwanese business tycoon—hire the Bad Boys to find three different women. The three women, coincidentally, all look alike.

The rest of the preposterous “plot” has to do with DNA experiments, cloning, the idea of the “perfect girlfriend,” true love, and all that sort of bullshit hooey. Throw in some henchmen in stupid black metal masks, sappy music, endless slo-mo and lame-ass Matrix-style action, and you have one real stinkola of a film.

Cheng is the center of attention here but his character is so riddled with clichés that he becomes painful to watch. He parades around in Don Johnson’s Miami Vice cast-offs and doesn’t utter one bit of believable dialogue throughout the entire movie. He woos girls in ways that no woman would fall for today, and cannot differentiate between love and sex. Koo makes out better, if only because he has less screen time and better clothes. Yang just sits around pinning after Koo and sucking on a freaking blow pop for most of the film.

Shu Qi is the only one who comes out on top. Her clone character is too naïve to be interesting, but with her other two characters (Chan’s girlfriend and a disabled track star), she is able to bring some warmth into this horrid film. To be avoided at all costs.

Watson Scale: 1 star