| Overall Grade: |
B |
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| Story: |
B- |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
B+ |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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A little different from the usual
by Scott A (movies profile)
Sep 8, 2007
This is a departure from the usual Hong Kong shoot-em-ups, the kind Chow Yun Fat made before becoming more of a mainstream movie star. It is a step toward greater realism, I think; the whole thing feels less like an opera with guns than does, for instance, John Woo's early films. There is no over-the-top dramatic flourishes, as Woo is prone to -- white doves flying from a burning church as the hero and the villain face each other down, etc.
American audiences could us a better explanation, though, that the city is about to be handed over to communist China. That is implicit in the story's events and some dialog, but it isn't really made explicit, and it is something many Americans probably aren't that aware of.
"Exiled" may be less like an opera than other Hong Kong shoot-em-ups, but the appeal of such films is still mostly found in the choreography of the violence, and there is nice camera work in the fight sequences here, with only a few of the martial-arts flourishes of earlier-style films. For instance, in one scene someone kicks a wooden door and it flies end over end through the room, like some Chinese acrobat, passing through the bullets flying from gunmen on opposite sides of the room. It makes for a great shot, but it defies reality. Otherwise, the staging, choreography, and direction are very good; Johnnie To does a good job.
The story here is rather understated most of the time, and the film manages to tell its story well with a minimum of dialog.
Its attempt to have us see the central characters as really a bunch of boys who never grew up works only to some degree -- or perhaps we are supposed to lament what they grew up to become. We may not know them well enough to care that deeply (since there is not much dialog, there is not much of a chance to tell us about their past lives together).
I appreciate its effort to give the wife/mother some agency, as she seeks revenge against her husband's "friends" for getting him involved in all of this shooting and killing. The film doesn't let her remain passive, as so many films do for their female characters. |
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