The central theme of these movies is on eavesdropping or wiretapping where the characters try to outsmart one another through the use of such intelligence gained from this method. This time, the story is based on a group of people hoping to profit from the trading of land rights owned by indigenous people living in the New Territories area of Hong Kong. At one end is Lau Ching Wan and his three buddies who appear to be working with the village heads' leader Uncle To but are plotting to seize all the profits instead of being content with what they already have. On the other end is Louis Koo whose character went to jail for a staged accident under the influence of alcohol in order to kill his buddy who had threatened to wreak Uncle To's plans. He engages the help of Daniel Wu's character to help in monitoring Lau and his cronies in a bid to help his former girlfriend who is Uncle To's daughter and to take revenge for what happened to him and his buddy.
Frankly speaking, there were some parts of the movie which I found rather contradictory or difficult to understand. For example. the story had started by explaining how the Hong Kong government gave house-building rights to the New Territories residents in 1972 so as to prevent them from making a fuss over the development of their area. However, from the time Louis Koo's character went to jail till he was released, it was said that he was in jail for just 5 years and yet the fashion style of the characters seemed a mismatch especially when they were all carrying advanced smartphones. Assuming that when the drink-driving accident happened in the late 80s or 90s (guessing based on the clothes, hairstyles and accessories worn), how could the smartphones and advanced computer equipment be available by the time Louis Koo was released? The story suggested that this was happening in the current times but the clothes worn especially the spectacles worn by Louis Koo seemed to be from the old times.
I also felt that the movie had deviated a bit from its "eavesdropping" concept too much due to the advancement of technology in current times. It was like Daniel Wu's character was doing more of "watching" the characters though the video feeds rather than eavesdropping which is the essence of this series and what makes it doubly exciting. To be able to acquire intelligence merely by hearing and not being able to see what those being monitored are up to is actually more challenging. In this sense, I think Part 3 failed to deliver what it should have done.
In such movies dominated by the male cast, it is inevitable that the actresses will be relegated to being insignificant characters. I thought Michelle Ye's character was simply annoying because the only thing she managed to do was to weaken the resolve of Louis Koo's character and resulted in his tragic fate at the end. However, this was an improvement from Part 2 when she played Koo's wife and had such limited screentime to make her presence felt. As for Zhou Xun who played the role of Louis Koo's buddy's wife, I thought her scene opposite Koo was quite good. There they were staring at each other and she was burning with rage while tears welled up in her eyes while he could not do anything to alleviate that pain and just kept looking at her with sorrow in his eyes. Although no words were exchanged between them, I thought it was a pretty intense scene showing the complicated emotions between them. Zhou also had pretty good chemistry with Daniel Wu as a potential love interest while her rejection and showdown with Lau Ching Wan was yet another powerful scene. In this sense, Zhou had a meatier role than Ye and was easily more memorable.
On the whole, I think Overheard 3 might disappoint those who have been longtime avid fans of the series because it's lacking in excitement and the complicated story about land rights may not interest everyone. Perhaps it's time to know when to stop or else any residual value from this series might be milked dry by the time the next lacklustre sequel comes up.
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