Drug War

A darn long shift for a provincial narcotics unit. For To, a surprisingly toned-down, raw, realistic, dark and the first movie I’ve seen by him where “style and form above all else" applies; unusually he chose a Mannesque style and approach, so it centers on atmosphere and what goes unsaid between the characters on opposite sides of the barricades. Simply a very well-made variation on Heat with all the trimmings. The problem is the final twenty minutes which would so love to be something like a shootout in the street like in Heat, but instead turns into classic To-ism. Hitherto intelligent characters suddenly begin behaving like dumb asses. Don’t get me wrong, the shootout is entertaining, uncompromising and stylish. It’s just that it comes from a completely different movie. (25/06/2013)

The poster is excellent. It sets the ground for an uncompromising crime story with a relentless policeman on one side and a criminal who has to cooperate whether he wants to or not, on the other side. The result? The Asians have already showed us similar crime movies, for example with the film Internal Affairs, so they should have some experience. However, for me, the relationship of the two was just not believable. The drug dealer snitched something, then there was some fuck up, he admitted to not saying everything, the police threatened him with death, he started crying and started talking. There were countless moments like this in the film. The scene with drug overdosing is quite good, but the final shoot off looks like it was happening on a playground. In a Chinese film I wouldn’t expect to see such differences in quality. (11/02/2018)

If you hate those movie shootouts where the rivals never kill each other, watch this. Here they fall like flies. Overall it’s a very good, brisk thriller. No risk of boredom. (27/06/2013)