Johnnie To’s collaborations with writer-director Wa Ka-fai often defy genre classification. Among the strangest yet most compelling of their team-ups is 2003’s Running on Karma, a film that’s by turns a romantic comedy, a procedural thriller, and a wire-fu action movie. All of it is couched in a magical-realist philosophical rumination on the Buddhist notions of karma and the possibility of atoning for past sins.

Andy Lau, sporting a ludicrous muscle suit, plays “Biggie,” a monk turned bodybuilder who left his order due to the stress of being able to see people’s past lives and thus know that negative karma would soon catch up with them in their current incarnation. Biggie finds himself drawn into the hunt for a serial killer whose contortionist abilities lead to a number of elaborate escapes and skirmishes with Biggie as well as cops. Paired with Criminal Investigation Department rookie Lee Fung-yee...