Breaking News

I've seen this movie at the Oldenburg International Fim Festival and I really have to say: It's quite good. The story - Police and its image in the media - is in interesting aspect in todays media world and it is worth to think about this relationship. This movie does right that and criticizes a too close relationship. Besides the story, the movie is a cool action-movie with a totally different style than the average western Hollywood-like action movie. Cool camera-work, nice different-angle shot and other cool stuff. It's just nice to watch. The viewer can see many shootings, but the humor does not come to short, especially the characters are quite funny. A negative aspect might be the usage of the "Bond-effect" (no bullet hits a good guy). But IMHO a cool action movie needs this effect. Otherwise there would be too many characters and there would be no development of these characters. All in All: 8/10, which means: Watch it!

Kelly Chen (Infernal Affairs, Infernal Affairs 3) is an incredibly beautiful actress and she can sing, too (Lavender, Lost and Found, Heavenly Music Floating in the Air). Here, she plays a Police Commissioner that has the sense to know that, "if it bleeds, it leads," and makes sure that she manages the press to the advantage of the Hong Kong Police and shows them in the best light possible to convince the residents that they are doing the job.

When a bank is robbed and Inspector Cheung's (Nick Cheung) unit is hot on the trail, the Commissioner thwarts their efforts to get maximum coverage of the police department.

An interesting film, directed by Johnny To, a major Asian director, with robbers who have honor, and massive amounts of shootouts between the cops and robbers.

After a shoot out goes wrong and the police are made to look like fools the brass resolve to catch the bandits while using the media to fix their busted reputation. However things don't go quite as expected for anyone and what was a simple manhunt becomes a hostage situation with all of Hong Kong watching.

This is an odd film. The plot is a bit too complex for its 90 minute running time, with gunfire exploding often when you least expect it. It starts off with a huge shoot out and then changes feels and tones several times as it goes. And there are a couple of moments where I swear I missed some plot point or other, but found I was simply carried along with the momentum and didn't care for long..

It clearly wants to make a commentary on the use of media by organizations to look good, and it mostly succeeds. (I'm also certain that the parallels to how the US Government is doing a similar thing in Iraq was probably unintentional even if it does make you think.)

This is a very good, and very off beat film that moves to its own beat. Definitely worth seeing, especially if you like action.

8 out of 10

Have I missed something here? From the title I thought this would be a film full of suspense and a story that would engage me but in my opinion it has nothing new to offer. I wonder what director To wanted to express through this film. There have been so many movies made on similar subjects. The only difference is that here To tries to portray the media as more involved in the plot but hardly anything stands out. The pace is very slow. The performances are miserable particularly that of Kelly Chen. Cinematography is alright. Even though the long shot in the beginning is somewhat impressive, it's nothing new. well, maybe for a movie like this, it is but that hardly make the experience of 'Breaking News' worthwhile. Anyway, I don't want to waste my time on commenting about this so I'll just end it by saying that I found it boring.

Nice premise, nice looking but for myself it just doesn't completely fall into place for me.

Probably the most noticeable aspect to "Breaking News" is the cinematography.. No doubt about it, the cinematography of Siu-keung Cheng & editing by David Richardson are first class, but it is also the source of my greatest frustration with this film. For mine the camera moves around too often, too quickly & will come to a holt in a sudden jolt. The opening scene in particular is just nauseating despite the obvious skill in putting it all together.

Well worth checking out & I'm sure that we will see a Hollywood rip-off of this film some time in the next couple of years.