The Mission (1999)
Reviewed by: hellboy on 2000-09-11
The Mission ends up being more than the sum of its parts. Like stated in previous reviews the story is lackluster. What makes this a great film are the characters that populate its universe and the little quirks that make this a film about five relating to each other. You can tell Johnny To wanted to transcend the genre by concentrating less on action and more on how the story is told. To has culled almost all unecessary scenes and left much for the viewer to piece together leaving little or no exposition. Consequently the movie plays much better after a second watching. All the actors give great reserved performances, which is pretty amazing considering Francis Ng and Anthony Wong have a bad habit of chewing scenery. Liked the guitar part of the soundtrack but the brassy intro theme was just too repetitive at times. The paper wad soccer scene is excellent. 8/10
Reviewer Score: 8