Reviewed by: Masterofoneinchpunch Date: 01/23/2014 Summary: "Without coincidences, there would be no stories." -- Nick Cheung in Breaking News I think it behooves anyone working on a best of 2013 list to make sure you have seen this one. Johnnie To is one of my favorite current auteurs and I generally like anything from his coproduction company Milkyway. Do not be surprised if this is going to be on my top 10 2013 list of film -- which I will eventually make around the middle of this year since I am behind as usual with newer movies. I had some trepidation going into this because of the Mainland censor rules, but I noticed a lot of positive reviews as well that this made several film critics top 10 lists. In the prologue you see Hong Kong citizen Timmy Choi Tin-ming (Louis Koo: Throw Down) driving his car erratically throwing up with burns on his face while the Orwellian omnipresent cameras film his movements. What you do not know at this point is he is fleeing a meth lab explosion which killed his wife and her brothers. This takes place in Jinhai (I believe this is Jinghai a municipality of Tianjin) as well as in the Heping District. Meanwhile two simultaneous events are happening: there is an undercover sting led by the Stetson wearing Captain Zhang Lei (the Stetson reminds me of both Jean-Pierre Melville and Lau Ching-wan in A Hero Never Dies) and two out-of-area cops (fromYuejiang) are following a suspected meth truck of Bill Li’s. After being captured by the police, Timmy is able to talk into “redeeming” himself if he turns informer. He will do anything to avoid the death penalty for his meth manufacturing. He tells of an upcoming meeting between manufacturer front Li Shuchang and ebullient distributer HaHa. This leads to a fascinating set of scenes where Zhang inserts himself as a fake proxy pretending to be both HaHa and Li Shuchang to gain trust from both sides. But what starts off as a police procedural ends up a mental battle of wills between Zhang and Timmy. While Timmy is corroborating, he of course, has other plans. But how far he will go and what he will do helps make this a fascinating film. Johnnie To fans will also be wondering when Lam Suet will show up. In the end you get the feeling that one cannot escape the reach of the Mainland law with their vast resources of money and people. But you also get the feeling that no one is going to stop trying either. This is a starkly bleak film not just in theme but in the cinematography from longtime collaborators Cheung Siu-keung and To Hung-mo as well. Johnnie To has partially attributed this to him working more about content passing the censors and less time on visual style. The end shoot-out that resembles Expect the Unexpected has been much heralded and rightly so. It is sometimes discombobulating in a way that sometimes you forget the dichotomy between who is bad and who is good. But there was an earlier shoot out with the Mute brothers that was so fantastic that I had to re-watch a few times after finishing the film. It also literally reminds me of the title Expect the Unexpected where I did not expect them to be that effective as they are calm and focused like the emotionless hit-man in The Boondock Saints. Since it is mainly from their perspective it also puts you in their mind-set and makes the government the aggressors and trespassers. In this film he tends to foster the humanity of the antagonists more than the police. Film professor David Bordwell makes a salient point in his essay on the film (link below): “Yet the result humanizes the crooks more than the cops. Timmy mourns his family; we don’t know if Captain Zhang has one.” I do think if he was to make this in Hong Kong and not under the SAPPRFT (State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television) rules there would have been a few differences in script as well as tone. There would have been more ambiguity, especially with the cop character. There would have been more bloody violence. I would have expected a more open ending. In a way it reminds me of film noir movies under the Hays Code. You knew that while watching the film certain facts were going to be evident. You know the “bad guys” are not going to get away (and they are from Hong Kong which probably helped sell this to the censors.) You know the cops are going to be portrayed as good with little to no ambiguity which it makes it difficult to do one of To’s favorite themes -- The psychological Doppleganger. These reasons are why I would not rank this up with my favorite To films like Election, Sparrow or Throw Down. Regardless, this is an excellent film and To has a way with being provocative and pushing ideas past the censors. But like with films under the Hays Code and with past Chinese films that have broached taboo topics with allegory (early Zhang Yimou) it is all in how you present the material. You have to pay attention in a Johnnie To film. He often just presents salient information once so if you missed something that can create a misunderstanding later. Sometimes you are not given all you need to know right away and important plot aspects are revealed later. It makes his oeuvre a little more difficult than many directors but often a lot more rewarding especially with subsequent viewings. This film is no exception and is highly recommended and is one of my favorite of 2013. Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: j.crawford Date: 11/28/2013 Summary: real good. It was good, real good. Reminded me of some other To films but this is pretty badass material for a Mainland film. So good, we watched it twice. Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 08/25/2013 Hong Kong drug manufacturer Louis Koo is arrested by mainland police, and agrees to work as an undercover informant to bring down the criminal gang he is involved with, in order to escape the death penalty he would otherwise be facing. Johnnie To really made a name for himself in the wake of the 1997 handover - when the biggest names in the industry left to try their chances in Hollywood, Johnnie To stepped up and pretty much took over in Hong Kong. His production company Milkyway Image released a string of films which made a big splash overseas and at home (not necessarily the same films in each case), and whilst those who had EXILED themselves to the US mostly ended up coming back with their tails between their legs and looking to China for investment and a market, To seemed to have carved himself a pretty comfortable position without leaving home. However, the lure of the mainland seems to have at least tickled his curiosity eventually, and DRUG WAR is his first venture into the mainland co-productions that are the bread and butter of Hong Kong's film industry these days. Getting into bed with the mainland is a bittersweet prospect for a Hong Kong film maker... whilst it brings much larger budgets and access to equipment and manpower Hong Kong films have rarely experienced - and of course a gigantic market for the finished product - it comes with a hefty price tag: Heavy-handed government censorship. It's famously hard to get a film approved by the mainland authorities, and film-makers have to be very careful about what subjects they cover and how they present them. Most famously, films must not allow the bad guys to win - crime does not and must not pay, in Chinese cinema. Given the restrictions that To must have known he was working with, DRUG WAR still manages to come across as classic Milkyway Image. The tale of uncompromising anti-narcotics officers engaged in a high stakes game of cat and mouse with a ruthless criminal gang dwells on procedure in obsessive detail, and develops its characters with To's trademark economy of exposition - "show, don't tell" is very much the house motto. The head of the team, Captain Zhang (Sun Hong-Lei) will stop at nothing to bring down the criminals, who know all too well what the stakes are with China's stance on drug trafficking. At times the film does seem a little bit like "super cops battling evil villains", where Milkyway Image's films have tended to be more morally neutral or ambiguous, and one wonders if that is To playing to the Chinese authorities... but he still manages to stamp his mark on the story by the end. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED springs to mind. Whilst still quite far from my favourite Johnnie To film, DRUG WAR shows that he can play the Mainland's game as well as any other director who has tried - probably compromising far less than most who have ventured there, in fact. Hopefully the film will do as well in China as it is sure to do overseas (it's clearly going to be a festival hit!). Reviewer Score: 7