Rating: C-
Dir: Johnnie To
Star: Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, Huang Yi, Wallace Chung
To is probably close to my favourite Hong Kong director… and that might be the problem here. While he continued to work in HK after the colony’s return to Chinese control, this was his first action film to be made entirely on the mainland. One wonders whether this caused the authorities to exercise greater control than usual, because it feels a lumbering and ponderous work in comparison to peak Johnnie To, even post-1997, such as Breaking News or Vengeance. I can imagine CCP officials hovering behind the director, demanding he make the anti-drug themes more blatant and obvious. For there are points where this makes Reefer Madness look like Requiem for a Dream. Or maybe the other way around.
The central character is Timmy Choi (Koo), a mid-level drug manufacturer, who drives his car into a restaurant following an explosion at his meth lab. This brings him into the orbit of cop Captain Zhang Lei (Sun), who convinces Choi to become an informant. The highly likely death sentence Timmy is facing – the Chinese government does not screw around with drug producers – aids in that argument. He helps Zhang work his way up the supply chain towards “Uncle Bill”, the mysterious figure at the head of the organization. However, it soon becomes apparent that Choi’s loyalties are not entirely with his new master. If there’s no honour among thieves, there is perhaps less still between police and those whom they seek to turn.
This is one of those films where I read the other (almost universally glowing) reviews and wonder if we watched the same movie. Admittedly, it didn’t help that the Tubi subs drifted increasingly out of sync with the dialogue, making for a struggle. Yet this was losing my attention well before that became a problem. Neither lead actor was able to command my attention in the way this kind of thing requires. The script gave them little or no depth beyond “cop” and “drug dealer”, and in comparison to something like Infernal Affairs, there wasn’t enough depth to provide interest. I felt there were a lot of logical flaws too: the local mobsters really didn’t know a high-profile cop like Zhang or recognize him when he went undercover?
It’s not without merits. To has always shown he can direct the hell out of any action sequence, and proves it again here. The final chunk has a hellacious gun-battle which takes place outside a school, and is a master class in how these things should be done. To be fair, it does have a grimly downbeat approach: there’s good reason we haven’t seen Drug War 2, because that would, of necessity, involve an almost entirely new cast of characters. Though did I care about any of their fates? Not really. Indeed, I was kinda relieved by the final appearance of the guy called Haha, presumably on account of his incessant, highly irritating laugh. Not missed, to put it mildly.
And remember, kids: just say no.