To change things up once in a while, it’s nice to get a reprieve from Hollywood generic fare and watch a foreign movie with all of its little unique differences and oddities in style. Drug War, however, proves that certain foreign movies aren’t really that much of a departure from Hollywood after all. Drug War, with a title that is as original and as no-nonsense and straight to business as the movie itself, is the latest gritty action flick by Hong Kong director Johnnie To to reach North American theatres. Very well known in Hong Kong but an unfamiliar name internationally, To proves himself to be a very competent director with a good mastery of all the fundamentals needed to make an effective and action-packed thriller but therein lies the failure of this movie. It has all the fundamentals in spades; it has the action scenes, the shootouts, drugs, violence, mafia kingpins and shady warehouses...etc but it literally has nothing else. Perhaps surprisingly for those who haven’t seen many Chinese or Hong Kong action films, there isn’t anything really here that you couldn’t find in a big Hollywood action thriller.
The movie wastes absolutely no time in throwing us into the convoluted yet paradoxically moronically simple storyline and doesn’t partake in the extravagant luxury of trying to introduce the characters properly. Character development is clearly completely irrelevant for the purposes of this movie. All of the characters can only be summarized using very basic descriptive adjectives and there isn’t much below the surface to scratch at here. We follow the action through the eyes of our two protagonists: Captain Zhang is an experienced and capable hard as nails cop willing to go to any lengths to catch the perp and Timmy Choi is a career criminal heavily involved in the drug gangs of Hong Kong. All other characters’ names and personalities are irrelevant; they’re all just cannon fodder for the grand finale. All we need to know is who the cops and the bad guys are, but even that eventually gets lost in the mayhem. Captured by Zhang and facing the death penalty, Timmy is forced to turn snitch as the two main leads form an unstable and temporary alliance. The only thing that can really be said about Timmy is that he is a self-serving survivalist; he is willing to do anything and cross anybody to make sure he gets out of whatever jam he happens to be in. And there lies Zhang’s dilemma. Pushed by circumstance and the urgent need for action into a continuous and nonstop pursuit of leads to take down all of Hong Kong’s mob bosses, Zhang is forced to trust the very untrustworthy Timmy and to put himself and his team in numerous compromising situations.
The film slowly builds and crescendos towards the end until it culminates in one of the most over-the-top, brutal and ridiculous shoot-outs in action movie history. People with multiple conflicting interests and objectives begin dropping left and right in an elaborate and over-stylized orgy of action that is both inventive and creative in its carnage as we truly don’t know who if anyone is going to come out of this thing alive. Characters are killed off and disposed of in a confusing manner that might not be entirely clear on a first viewing but the one thing that stands out the most in this finale is the fact the bullets in this world do not seem to be as effective as they should be. People are shot multiple times but remain standing as if nothing more than a mosquito just bit them. Action movies can be forgiven for certain breaks from realism such as the never-ending availability of ammunition or the lack of a need to reload, but tension and excitement tends to wane when those elements are overdone.
There are a number of intense and really well done scenes that keep you at the edge of your seat but those are mixed in with a number of scenes that are either redundantly boring or comically stupid and over-the-top. We cringe and begin to question Zhang’s capability as a leader when so many of his officers die and when he is frequently winging it and improvising improbable solutions at a moment’s notice. But in the end I guess, it all makes for good entertainment as stupid as it all really is. People are constantly falling by the wayside but the movie doesn’t choose to comment on that or stay with them to examine the damage and carnage wrought by all these characters. The only thing that matters is the action and whether Zhang is successful or not in his hell-bent pursuit of justice. Ultimately, we never learn why Zhang does what he does or how Timmy became what he is. Both characters go through the wringer in this movie but this doesn’t really change or affect either of them as we are left so completely in the dark that we really couldn’t care less what fate has in store for anyone when all is said and done.
C+
Trailer:
Movie info:
Runtime: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Cast: Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, Huang Yi
Director: Johnnie To
Screenplay: Ryker Chan, Ka-Fai Wai, Nai-Hoi Yau, Xi Yu
Cinematography: Siu-Kueng Cheng
Distributed by: Media Asia
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