Dai si gin

When a gang escapes from the police and some reporters get the whole incident on tape there is an outcry towards the competence of the police force. Looking for a chance to redeem themselves the police once again track down the gang in an apartment building and stage a real-TV type of event with hundreds of cameras to show the city of Hong Kong that they can do their job properly. Things get interesting when the crooks fire back with their own video of the incident and it is also revealed that there is not one gang in the building, but two.

From the opening 7 or so minute scene that has no cuts and culminates in a shootout to the unpredictability of the rest of the movie this is film that really grabs your attention as if itself were a piece of "breaking news." Interesting is the fact that the "breaking news" almost breaks the reputation of the police. The ability of the media to get information literally everywhere in the blink of an eye is given an interesting commentary in that it can hurt the police as much as a raging shootout. And how can anyone, in such a hectic and tiresome line of work, be able to do anything correctly or according to some procedure if they have everyone else around them breathing down on their neck? It is possible when your success rate is high, but the moment you fail you are treated with a badgering as this film demonstrates.

All in all, this is more a film about the media then it is about the police. The media are in the background throughout and the cops and crooks are the main characters, but it is the effect of an information hungry media that essentially is the driving force for the events in the film. The film's use of news-like footage is another thing - you want to know and see what is going to happen next, but it is that precise constant peering over the shoulder that hinders the police in doing their job. That makes for an interesting take on the crime-caper genre with the traditional drives like greed and corruption almost totally set aside. 8/10

Not rated (yet at least), but contains R level violence.

The script is twisted and not exactly what you consider state-of-the-art in terms of European or American cinema. But it's Johnny To, so you know what you'll get. The cinematography is brilliant, the acting unfortunately mediocre, it isn't as intense as in Johnny To's last movie "Throwdown". But still I like this one better, for the Honk Kong pictures and the astonishing opening scene which was filmed uninterrupted for just about five minutes including camera elevations, camera entering appartments, a decent shoot out and a lot of 180° turns without any single cut. The staging of the action in the giant apartment building is tense and gives a disorientation that prepares you for any surprise. Gangsters on floor 9/C. Police on floor 8/B. But they need minutes to clash and one never knows what comes next. After short shootings everyone spreads in another direction and the situation is anything but clear. This is big cinema and gives a new idea how action and tension can be staged besides boring Hollywood standards. This movie owes greatly to the atmosphere of Hong Kong. Crowded streets, huge apartment blocks with the air conditions sticking out like giant bee hives, big limos... and not to forget all the different branches of HK police that always seem to quarrel with each other rather than fighting criminals. If anyone could explain the different branches of HK police and how they interact, feel free to send me an e-mail. There is no good and bad in this movie as the gangsters reveal sympathetic traits of character while cooking for the family taken hostage - they would have become rather cooks and own a restaurant than being "uncle killer" and "uncle bandit". The police appears to be completely disoriented and rather eager to get publicity than fighting the "bad" guys who are especially clever to use the media in their favor. The movie is probably ment as a satire on public organs such as the police and the manipulation of today's mass media to influence public opinion. As I'm no big philosopher I'm gonna stop evaluating right here. For all HK fans and everyone that enjoys a nice camera work including some shoot outs - you definitely have to watch this movie. I had the honor to attend a screening of this movie during the VIENNALE in Vienna on the giant "Gartenbau Kino" Screen.

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.

Imagine a street scene. Its not a flash street, just a small side street in down town Hong Kong. Something's going down, but we don't really know what - we can see two men in a car, talking in code with people on their radios, as they watch three men. Then all hell breaks loose, the three men are joined by a fourth and they're shooting. Their weapons cause foot long jagged flames, and those bullets sound like they're hitting spots not far from where we are sitting. We realise the two men in the car were policemen (Inspecter Cheung turns out to be one of the main characters), and they're joined by reinforcements. Lots of them. In a Police van, which the four gunmen steal and get away. Until they're stopped by traffic. More policemen. More shooting. Policemen in uniforms are surrendering and being shot dead anyway. Then the four gunmen make a final getaway, by stealing an ambulance, leaving someone stranded on a stretcher.

That's the first seven minutes of this movie. Afterwards, the gunmen hole up in a labyrinthine apartment block while the Police do their best to smoke them out - there is the CID (the good Inspector Cheung and his team half a dozen) and the OCB led by a very ambitious Inspector Rebecca Fong - there are something like a thousand (!) cops deployed in her assault on the building. Then there is the UCD (?), a sinister group, dressed in black body armour and face masks.

But there is more going on in this movie than the bringing of these criminals (and another pair who just happen to have been in the building as well) to justice or the turf wars between Cheung and Fong. The title gives this away - Breaking News. Thanks to the street fight, the media has got hold of the story and the cops are not looking good. So, most of what Fong is doing is playing up her response for the media - sending in 1,000 cops in bus after bus makes for an impressive sight. Then you put webcams on all the cops and select what is going out to the public. Hell, why not put a sexy soundtrack behind scenes of the cops going after their men.

But the crims aren't beyond playing that game too - they've got their own footage, in which they're winning, setting explosions off that are killing more cops. And they're holed up in an apartment with web access. Then, to show they're real people as well, they cook lunch, a really nice lunch it was too, and broadcast images of them sitting down to a joyful meal with their hostages.

Of course, with the kind of manpower the Police are throwing at the crims, you never really expect them to get away. And yet, the two leaders of the two groups get a lot further than you might expect.

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.