毒战 (Drug War)

A really great, fast-paced thriller. In the vein of Cold War, everything happens within a 24-hour period (or a couple days at most, it's hard to tell sometimes), so it's always throwing something at you. Louis Koo is sensational, and Sun Honglei is pretty amazing too (especially when he's impersonating "Haha"), with an unusual story and the true personality of a drug trafficker on full show; untrustworthy at every turn.

I felt like the film was trying to reiterate China's policy on drug taking, trafficking, selling etc., basically...you die. Either by drugs, or by a gun fight, or at the hands of the Government when they catch you. The music was nice, and Johnnie To really knows how to create these types of mature Hong Kong/Chinese thrillers as he showed long ago with the Andy Lau assassin-thriller, Fulltime Killer. I really wish he'd make more of these movies instead of the romantic comedies he's specialised in in recent years. But even those movies are pretty fun too, like Don't Go Breaking My Heart and Turn Left, Turn Right. So, I suppose my real desire is for him to just do more! Less producing, more directing.

B+

An engaging Chinese action drama which pits a taciturn detective and his elite team against a secretive group of drug kingpins with a turncoat whose true loyalty and plan is unclear caught in the center of the conflict. The storyline is a type of continuous chase sequence. It is not presented in real time, but it almost could be. The film is directed with a sure hand by the highly regarded Johnnie To: it moves at a fast and furious pace and has a complicated cast of characters, yet there is always focus and a potent vein of pulsating tension, and it explodes at the end into a violent, John Woo style shootout which will leave every action fan more than satisfied. A complaint, however: I could never invest in any of the characters beyond their surfaces. The key cop. The other cops. The key criminal. The other criminals. They serve their purpose and populate the screen with terse style, but there is nothing meaningful to grab hold of, so I suspect the film will not prove memorable in general. There are also a few absurd, over-the-top, unrealistic depictions of drug use (one in a hotel room in particular is hilarious), though this may be a friendly gesture toward the People's Republic's drug averse censors.

B

Glad to see you finally caught it, and I'm glad it somewhat entertained you.

To's direction is truly fantastic. He elevates what I believe is a fairly unspectacular or even flat-out bad screenplay through sheer technical expertise. The final gunfight is a kick-ass action sequence by any measure.

The last scene is fairly grim and wrenching. "Justice," but no real sense of triumph or relief.

The last scene is 100% pure propaganda. It's a Chinese-Hong Kong production, and that last scene has the smear of the mainland all over it.

The film was actually made in Shenzhen, where I live, and I recognised a few of the locals. Quite cool.