Vengeance (2009)

I'd never heard of Johnny Hallyday in the least. I read his name in a movie that sounded interesting because I was familiar with the director and wanted to give him a try. Who is he? A French singer/performer and actor who in the 1960s was dubbed the French Elvis Presley. Pretty lofty comparison, isn't it? My first introduction to him -- singing or acting -- was a good one, a Hong Kong action shoot 'em up, 2009's Vengeance.

For almost 20 years, Francis Costello (Hallyday) has tried to put his checkered past behind him, opening up a successful restaurant in Paris and working there as its chef. But in Macao, his daughter and her family are brutally attacked by a hit team; her husband and children killed. The daughter (Sylvie Testud) lives long enough to see her father one last time, dying soon after his arrival in Macao. Costello is a former hit man and returns to the life he tried to put behind him. He enlists the help of three local hired killers, Kwai (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang), Chu (Ka Tung Lam), and Fat Lok (Suet Lam), to assist him in finding the killers, but in his search for revenge, Costello isn't telling them something very important about himself.

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across the films of Hong Kong director Johnnie To, starting with The Mission, and have been hooked ever since. While carving out quite a little niche for himself, To is clearly a fan of past cinema, paying homage to directors from the 1960s and 1970s with both his style and storytelling, but also simply the ways he goes about getting his message across. His characters -- typically the definition of anti-heroes -- reflect the doomed camaraderie and loyalty of men fated to die bloody a la Sam Peckinpah in the Wild Bunch. His stories take place in a sparse, cruel world a la Jean-Pierre Melville, and the action and gunplay are reminiscent of both those directors, but he was obviously greatly influenced by John Woo's slow-motion, blood-squibbed landscapes. Most importantly, he does all this while still being unique and original.

What I love about the films of To, Peckinpah, Melville, Woo and even someone like Sergio Leone are the worlds they create in their stories. To doesn't make the criminal underworld look glamorous, but he makes it look effortlessly cool and stylish. These are all bad men with deeds that must be answered and paid for, but these are also men who live by a code and expect others to do so at the same time. When you give your word to someone, you're expected to keep it. These hired killers are the modern day gunslingers. They do their jobs for money, exploring a cutthroat world and just trying to survive. To shoots these men (with a camera, not physically shooting them) like the iconic heroes of those past directors. Four men silhouetted against a backdrop, their coats whipping around, all of them waiting for the dangerous and possible death ahead of them. Stylish, cool, and great characters to go along with.

Like many directors, To has his crew of actors he likes to work with so he's worked with them on repeated occasions. Start with Chau-Sang as Kwai, the unofficial leader of the group of three hit men. He's quiet, stoic, loyal to a fault and he's principled. Lam's Chu has similar qualities although he questions their objectives a little more while Lam's Lok goes with the group as needed. We're given little in the way of background, but there's a sense of history among the group. Chau-Sang and Lam are frequent collaborators with To, both the actors and director getting along quite well. Hallyday is an interesting choice to play Costello. Besides his eyes looking truly bizarre, he's a solid if unspectacular anti-hero. I don't know if this character -- or Hallyday as an actor -- could carry the movie alone, but as part of this killing quartet, he works well. In pre-production, the part was offered to Alain Delon who ended up deciding not to take the part. Hallyday does a good job as Costello, but I can't help but wonder what Delon would have done with the part.

Another frequent To collaborator, Simon Yam plays George Fung, the Triad mob boss who ordered the hit on Costello's family. Putting together his stories/scripts, To is always a fan of likable anti-heroes and love to hate villains. Yam isn't around a whole lot during the movie, but he tries to make the most of his appearances. Some more background would have been nice for his character, but the lack of development doesn't derail the movie. A somewhat obvious twist -- to this somewhat slow reviewer -- involves Fung's alliances, but it is telegraphed pretty early. 'Vengeance' does try to throw a couple plot twists our way, but none of them really come as an effective surprise. One uses a story point from Memento -- a forgetful main character -- but it feels forced into the script and a little hackneyed at times.

All that description and analysis of story and character seems a waste as I try to wrap things up. To doesn't have the name recognition of some of the best action directors around, but he should. Blending the bloody, slow-motion action sequences of Peckinpah and Woo, To is a phenomenal action director, able to put unique set pieces together that bring his films up a notch or two. Even the ones that feel familiar are a treat to watch develop as the body count rises. One moonlit firefight is impressive in a wooded, isolated park, but the best has Kwai, Chu and Fat Lok battling a small army of killers, all of them decked out in body length, hooded dusters. If you're anything like me, you're drawn in by the action and end up staying for the style and characters. Not To's best, but it's certainly up there.

Vengeance <---trailer (2009): ***/****

Fulltime Killer

I can appreciate the fact that if you watch enough movies, you're going to be influenced in one way or another eventually.  That's especially going to be the case for movie fans who grow up to become involved in the movie-making process as adults.  Think of Quentin Tarantino who is a huge fan of martial arts, grindhouse, spaghetti westerns and cult classics of the 1960s and 1970s.  His love for films -- especially those genres -- has affected his films with references left and right if you know where to look.  But at what point do you cease to be original and just one big rip-off of the movies you love?

That was my biggest problem with 2001's Fulltime Killer from director Johnnie To. Discovering To last year with his action flick The Mission, I've enjoyed catching up with the Hong Kong director's filmography.  To a point, all of his films reference other action movies that have come before.  There's nothing wrong with that. It's hard not to reference the movies that have come before.  The key is to add something different, something new, or at least tweak what the audience has seen.  Throw us for a loop, try and confuse us with that new feature. More than that, if all you do is reference older, more well-known flicks, all I'm doing while watching your movie is think of those movies. That's never a good thing if you ask me.

Known as one of the most reliable hired killers in Asia, O (Takashi Sorimachi) has a reputation as someone who can get the job -- any job -- done and to do it efficiently without causing much of a stir.  He's so good though that no one knows what he looks like, even a police inspector, Lee (Simon Yam), who would like nothing more than to get his hands on him. Lee might get his chance when a new hired gun arrives on the scene, Tok (Andy Lau), a bit of an eccentric who takes jobs for cheap and isn't as efficient but still manages to pull the job off. Trying to prove himself as worthy, Tok would like nothing more than to topple O from his perch at the top.  He's going to do everything he can to take him down too, including going after a girl (Kelly Lin) that O has his eye on.

I feel wrong criticizing a director for sticking with what he knows.  The other To movies I've seen all dealt with similar stories, similar characters, but they were successful, entertaining, and exciting in their execution.  They were characters you'd seen before in other movies, but there remained something interesting or appealing about them. Maybe it wasn't even them, but their predicament that made it interesting. The important thing was that you were interested regardless of the reason. With 'Fulltime,' I was never pulled into the movie. There's the established killer, the up and coming newbie, the driven cop obsessed with catching them, the girl caught in the middle.

To his credit, and that's why I can't or won't completely rip this movie is that To does attempt to one-up the formula.  It's not so much on the O character because that character is pretty cookie-cutter.  Still interesting, but definitely been there, done that.  It's with Tok, the killer who wants it all.  There's an interesting if somewhat confusing backstory with his character that could have been fleshed out more or at least explained a little better.  But it's more than that. Tok is just too eccentric, too weird in his actions.  It becomes so over the top that you aren't interested in the character or intrigued at what he's up to.  Eccentric is one thing, but for me at least there has to be something appealing about him.  There has to be something human, something believable even in small does.  Tok becomes too much of a cartoon character though.

Counter that with Sorimachi as O who underplays everything to the point where you could accuse him of sleepwalking through the part.  He's quiet, steely-eyed, and good at what he does, knowing the risks but accepting them as part of his lifestyle.  Like several other To characters, he reminded me a lot of Alain Delon in Le Samourai, a killer with the simplest of lives, a life that revolves around his profession.  Yam's character is interesting in how his character arc from where he starts to where he ends up.  It's surprising where it goes as Lee tries to piece everything together.  Of the three, Sorimachi and Yam end up making the more interesting characters.  Lin as Chin is the wild card, the innocent caught up in the chaos.  Her character makes an odd jump that comes without much reason and never materializes into anything.

Looking for something simple to recommend is easy here if you're searching for a common denominator....yes, action. Crazy amounts of action.  Slightly more graphic than previous To movies I've seen, 'Fulltime' never goes too long without some sort of epic shootout or chase.  Like the characters, it's over the top at times -- even comic book like at times -- and stylized within an inch of its life, but it's fun.  Still, the movie keeps you at an arm's length most of the time, never bringing you in like I would have hoped.  Good but not as good as the other Johnnie To movies I've seen.

Fulltime Killer <---trailer (2001): **/****

Running Out of Time

If you were given less than four weeks to live with the chance you could drop dead at any second, what would you do with the time you have left?  I'd like to think I would do the things in life I've always wanted to, experience them before it was too late.  In some cases, you could even right the wrongs from your past.  Apply that idea to a movie, and you've got a formula that's been used countless times before and will most likely be used many more times in the future.  I don't know many that were better than 1999's Running Out of Time.

It had been over a month since I reviewed a Hong Kong action flick so here goes. I first saw a Johnnie To-directed movie starting with The Mission and continuing into quasi-sequel Exiled, loving both movies. From the director's chair, he's able to make these stylishly minimalistic action movies that channel directors from different decades and countries.  The cynicism, the fatalism would make French director Jean-Pierre Melville proud, and the violence and code among men would put a smile on American director Sam Peckinpah's face.  But more than just channeling what came before him, To always puts his own spin on his movies, making them his own.

Given just four weeks to live by his doctor, Peter Cheung (Andy Lau) decides to go out with a bang. He goes about robbing a finance company in Hong Kong, pulling off an elaborate heist that doesn't seem the effort he put into it for the results he gained.  Managing to escape a police gridlock, Cheung confronts police investigator and expert negotiator, Inspector Ho (Ching Wan Lau).  The Inspector is fascinated by this highly intelligent crook who seems to revel in keeping him guessing. In a rooftop hostage situation, Cheung defiantly dares Ho to see if he can keep up with him for the next 72 hours at which time everything will figure itself out.  The Inspector isn't quite sure what to make of it, but his curiosity gets the best of him. Just what exactly is this mysterious criminal up to?

Because I did like this movie (a lot), I'm going to get the negatives out of the way early.  They're not specific to this movie either, they were problems I had with both of the previous To movies I'd seen.  These clearly aren't movies made with the biggest of budgets which I'm cool with.  There are these little elements which drive me nuts though, flaws in logic that are needed to keep the story moving for the sake of moving it along. They don't always serve any other purpose.  We're at Point A and need to get to Point B. Let's do it!  There's also an odd reliance on some bizarre disguises Lau's Cheung uses that made me think of John Woo's Mission Impossible II at its worst, and some odd situations with "comedic value" as To regular Suet Lam being a clueless and possibly retarded henchman. Little things that don't derail the movie by any means, but they are annoying nonetheless.

On to the positives, and there's plenty.  In a few recent reviews, I've mentioned the idea of the doomed, tragic character.  Judging by personal background and character make-up, you know from the start there is no way they survive the movie.  Improving on that idea, Lau's Cheung also knows this and doesn't give a damn.  The plot isn't as simple as its made out above with some familial revenge on his mind involving his deceased father and an epically big diamond.  There is something oddly appealing who knows he is going to die and decides to live it up. He's got a plan in place with an end result in mind (and let's face it, the movie's going to get him to that point), but he doesn't care if something happens to him in the process.  Lau does a great job with this doomed character, and to To's credit, he doesn't pull a fast one in the end about his main character.

So there's Melville's cynicism about the main character's life expectancy, now on to Peckinpah's principles of male bonding through similarities regardless of profession, in this case a master criminal and the cop pursuing him.  Cheung is playing a game of cat-and-mouse with Ho, manipulating him to do what he wants, hoping he pursues him until he gets to the point he needs him to be at.  Across lines of law and right and wrong, these two men are not so different. Cheung never endangers anyone that doesn't deserve it, and for that reason Ho gives him a little string to play with.  The two characters have some great scenes together, simple dialogue exchanges that play up To's idea of a code of honor among men regardless of your profession. Cheung respects Ho's ability and talent, Ho similarly fascinated by what this criminal is able to do. It's a simple, not completely unique premise that carries the movie mostly because Lau and Wan Lau are so good in their respective parts.

Not as action-packed as the other To movies I've seen, there is still enough action to appease most fans.  What surprised me most was the quieter, more intimate moments.  Much of that can be chalked up to Ying-Wah Wong's musical score, an oddly appropriate combination of Celtic, African and techno themes that somehow end up working together. Listen HERE for three main samples of the score, the second one being the best starting at about the 3:00 minute mark. A few quick, subtle scenes with Lau and a young woman (YoYo Mung) he meets are hauntingly beautiful, To's camerawork and the musical scoring working seamlessly together. The ending is even better, pulling a smile on your face when you hear what one main character does without us ever seeing it. Another Johnnie To movie I can heartily recommend.

Running Out of Time <---trailer (1999): *** 1/2 /****  

Exiled

A few weeks ago I reviewed The Mission, a Hong Kong action movie from director Johnnie To. It was a solid action movie that I'd never heard of but ended up loving it.  As I was reviewing it, I saw many of the same names popping up repeatedly in another movie from To with similarly positive reviews.  The movie, 2006's Exiled, was available on Netflix so I gave it a try especially when the description included a mix of spaghetti western and Hong Kong action backgrounds.  Glad I did.

The Mission was the story of five bodyguards working together and gelling as a team only to discover one of the group has committed an act that can only be resolved through his death.  The ending was good but not great and left me wanting a little more closure.  Take it for what this is worth because I've read descriptions of the movie that both agree and disagree, but Exiled is an unofficial sequel to The Mission.  It basically picks up where the 1999 action movie leaves off, a few months later with similar characters but different names.  To has insisted in interviews this movie was not intended as a sequel, and he's probably telling the truth.  But it's just too similar, too close for it not to be. However you interpret it -- sequel or not -- the truth is it's just a really solid movie.

It's 1998 in Macao and China is about to regain control of the island.  Mob wars are starting up everywhere as mobsters and gangsters make plays for power.  Waiting outside a small apartment are four men, all hitmen assigned a mission concerning a former gangster named Wo (Nick Cheung). It's a case of two vs. two as Blaze (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) and Fat (Suet Lam) have been ordered to kill Wo while Tai (Francis Ng) and Cat (Roy Cheung) are prepared to protect Wo even if it means a shootout. All five men are childhood friends who have gone their separate ways but end up working against each other.  Friendship ends up affecting the mission though as all four men decide to help Wo and his wife Jin (Josie Ho) escape certain death. Their decision has quick consequences though as the mob boss who hired them, Boss Fay (Simon Yam), doesn't appreciate their change of heart and orders them taken out.

Reuniting four of the five main characters from The Mission including another key figure, Exiled certainly feels like a direct sequel.  It certainly helps things get into a flow because if you've seen the first movie, you're already familiar with the characters and their disagreement.  Instead of Shin having a target on his back, we get Wo, a family man with a wife and infant.  The story does have some odd elements and drifts at times more than it probably should.  The idea of combining some spaghetti western background with the typically action-packed Hong Kong crime thrillers doesn't always mix smoothly -- a running gag with shooting an empty pop can is tedious, a flying door spins through a gunfight -- but the positives most definitely outweigh the negatives.

Maybe the biggest difference I noticed here was a bigger budget given to To.  The movie is more polished, more professional looking, most evident during the action scenes.  Stylish with uses of shadow and light, slow motion, blood squibs that look like a fiery mist, the movie's action is truly something to behold.  Roger Ebert complained in his review that thousands of bullets are fired and no one ever gets shot.  Well, I don't know what movie he was watching because the action is everywhere.  The opening apartment shootout is a little more understated than the rest, building up to the bigger set pieces like a restaurant shootout (watch HERE), the fallout at an illegal doctor's apartment (HERE), and the two-part finale that involves a heist of a gold transport and the showdown in the finale at a upper class hotel.  Like few other directors can do, To conjures up comparisons to Sam Peckinpah and The Wild Bunch with his action.  Not a bad comparison.

More than just the action, Exiled is a modern western of sorts, and not just a spaghetti western.  The characters are the modern day equivalents of wild west gunfighters, guns for hire who take on a job as long as it pays.  Then when the chips are down, their true colors come out.  Wong's Blaze is the unwilling leader, Ng's Tai as his temperamental right hand man, Lam and Cheung as the loyal sidekicks, and Wo the root of all their problems.  But just like movie portrayals of gunfighters -- especially The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch -- these men have a code they live by, one that depends on honor, loyalty, and in the end doing what's right no matter the cost.  So here even though it'd be easier to just shoot it out over Wo's fate, the quartet bands together and does what they believe in, even knowing the extreme risks they're all taking.

What can separate a good action movie from a great action movie is the characters.  Just like The Mission, we're given a reason to support these characters even when they are not particularly likable.  We're given little background information, but we don't need much.  Wong is the quiet scene-stealer, Ng the fiery hot-head, and Yam is the nearly psychotic bad guy.  I can't say I liked the movie more than The Mission, but it was close.  Very stylized action -- including a great opening sequence straight out of a Leone western -- and overall a movie that's a lot of fun to watch.

Exiled <---trailer (2006): ***/****

The Mission

Peruse through my reviews over the last year and a half, and you're sure to find a fair share of men on a mission movies. It is a type of movie that crosses all sorts of genre lines and boundaries.  Just thinking off the top of my head, I can think of these movies that are westerns, WWII, spies, heists, and many more.  Thanks to Netflix though, I've been expanding my movie horizons, and that's how I stumbled onto 1999's The Mission.

It is a Hong Kong action movie that's gained a bit of a cult status over the last 10 years, and for good reason.  This is a good movie.  I haven't really seen any Asian action movies with the exception of Infernal Affairs and The Good, the Bad and the Weird, but just from quickly reading up about them, there a ton of good ones to recommend.  Stylish and action-packed, there's not much to dislike about them.  Okay, the DVD I got had the video quality of a widescreen bootleg, but that's the distributor's fault, not the movie.

When his brother, Mr. Lung (Eddy Ko), narrowly survives a hit attempt, Frank Lung (Simon Yam) hires a team of bodyguards to work together to protect his older brother until the threat can be eliminated. Leading the group of bodyguards is a well-known name in the underworld, a hair stylist named Curtis (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) who has a reputation as being loyal, capable and always finishing what he's hired for. The other four hires come from all walks of life with different backgrounds, but they intend to see this job through.  The quintet gels quickly, preventing several more hit attempts, but just when it seems they're unstoppable Frank delivers a twist to Curtis.  One of the four had an affair with Mr. Lung's wife and has to be eliminated.  What will the group do? Turn one of their own in, or stick together and shoot it out?

Director/producer extraordinaire Johnnie To has done it all in the movie business in Hong Kong from action movies to romantic comedies and everything in between. If this is an example of all his movies, the guy's got some serious talent.  One reviewer pointed out this is the type of crime thriller French director Jean-Pierre Melville would have made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the description is dead-on.  This is a bare-minimum type of movie, sparse sets with little decoration, brief dialogue with characters exchanging looks and glances that say more than words ever could, and characters who do unpleasant things not because they like it, just because they're good at it.  And at just 83 minutes, not a minute is wasted along the way.  To sets out the outline and goes with it, not a stray storyline anywhere in sight.

Maybe the biggest positive when watching foreign movies is you have little history or background with most -- if not all -- of the cast.  They're playing a character that you can either like or dislike, but that's all.  The five bodyguards reminded me in a lot of ways of The Magnificent Seven, honor bound only by their word and little else.  Chau-Sang is the leader of few words, a hair stylist of all things who does these security details and unsavory jobs on the side.  He looks like anything but a killer, and that's what he's counting on.  Rounding out his team are Roy (Francis Ng), a club owner with a temper, Shin (Jackie Lui Chung-yin), the youngster trying to gain a name for himself, Mike (Roy Cheung), a quiet, assured man with a gun, and James (Suet Lam), the chubby killer and black market guns supplier. They click right away and work beautifully as a team, becoming friends in the process.  That just makes it nastier when they might have to turn on one of their own.

What impressed me here -- among many other things -- was the execution of the action scenes.  The opener (the attempt on Mr. Lung) is unexplained.  We're just dropped into a standoff in a bar without knowing who any of the participants are.  Once the team is formed, we see them working together on several more botched attempts on Mr. Lung.  One, an attempt in a poorly lit alleyway -- watch HERE -- is chaotic without being confusing.  You're always aware where everyone is, and what they're trying to do.  The highlight later is a tension-packed attempt in a mall about to close.  Gunmen wait around every corner and beam, and Curtis and his team stoically stand still waiting for their chance. Check it out HERE. From the director's chair, To lets these action scenes develop and amps up the intensity by just sitting back and letting that natural tension take over.

Of course, I can't say I loved everything about this movie.  The flaws though are minor ones, and in the grand scheme of things won't change me from giving a very positive rating.  For one, the musical score sounds out of place to me.  I'm glad some blaring soundtrack that buries the action and story wasn't used, but this score was too soft, too quiet.  The other problem was the ending.  It could have been the subtitles -- which I'm sure missed some things -- or maybe just my missing something, but I'm not exactly sure what happened.  If what I think happened actually went down, we don't have a problem with the ending.  But all in all, a great action movie I'm glad I stumbled upon.

The Mission <---trailer (1999): *** 1/2 /****