Vengeance

If Daddy's little girl got hurt, you know darn well that Daddy will spare no effort in hunting the perpetrators down, especially when the police is inept, and turning to the other side of the law for revenge seem all the more attractive. Cost isn't a factor too, since everything has a price, especially with a dad willing to sell everything just to see his brand of justice get exacted.

Welcome to Johnnie To's world of hit men and a tale of vengeance, set in the cities of Macau and Hong Kong, with his regular Milkyway cast and crew set to deliver an all too familiar premise, now joined by French actor Johnny Hallyday as Costello, a chef who's naturally more than meets the eye, being able to assemble a stripped handgun blindfolded and in record time compared to seasoned veterans. His daughter and her family got gunned down in cold blood, and working against time and with only an injured ear as a clue, he capitalizes on a chance encounter with the hit men trio of Kwai (Anthony Wong), Chu (Lam Ka Tung) and Fatty Lok (Lam Suet), who for plenty of Euros, a watch, a restaurant and an apartment in Paris, take up this assignment for quite the good deal as it is.

Only of course for Wai Ka-Fai's story to put them in a dilemma of sorts, when they have to consider whether to honour an agreement with someone they know little about, or to do so with their long time contract employer (played to evil delight by Simon Yam), fully aware that crossing the latter will briing about some drastic results, akin to biting the hand that feeds you.

And of course with such consequences come plenty of room for some balletic shootouts, only that the initial big one, with Eddie Cheung, Felix Wong and Ng Ting Yip turned out to be a dark affair under a moon shadowed by cloud cover, with black leather jackets not helping much in knowing who's shooting who in the dark. Otherwise, there were some quirky scenes such as the innovating rolling of rubbish bales to act as sandbags in an open plain, and the finale which will see you rooting for just desserts to be served.

Johnnie To has included plenty of his signature style in this film, from stand offs to no holds barred shootouts with a myriad of semi and automatic handguns and rifles, it's like an education session with a firearms nut. Which of course entertains since the cast, already so familiar with his style, and familiar with what's expected of them, pulled this off oozing plenty of maschismo along the way. I cannot for the life of me think of any other non- resident actors who can waltz into a Johnnie To film and look and feel like his gangsters, though Johnny Hallyday comes close with a dogged mission, and a look that has seen better, glorious days.

There are some shades of To's earlier films such as The Mission and Exiled, which isn't too difficult to draw some parallels from since they start essentially a similar core cast, and with some scenes which I thought were uncannily lifted from Exiled with the enemy assault and flight from the fire escape, and there's almost always a scene in the rain with umbrellas, a throwback to other Milkyway productions like Sparrow and Eye in the Sky. There's a twist in the story involving a character in the film which I will not dwell or make references to (since you're likely to go Oh, that looked like a plot element from some other film), but suffice to say that that little wee bit that came unexpected, provided more gravitas to the title Vengeance, since it now takes on a whole new dimension altogether, with more action promised of course, but examining the notion of the act of Vengeance, on how different it will be altogether when one no longer remembers the purpose it's supposed to serve.

It's strictly for Johnnie To's fans who know what to expect from the master and now poster boy of Hong Kong cinema, and probably a good introduction too for those new to his films. Those sitting on the fence will wonder what the fuss is about with this film being part of the official selection at this year's Cannes Film Festival, but over here, this film is making a fuss, especially for me, and I'll give you a reason.

For once, we can watch a Hong Kong film with Cantonese dialogue left intact. While local film Blood Ties had Cantonese used as well, this film builds upon that goodwill extended by the powers that be. True, Vengeance has a chunk of dialogue in English, with the other chunk predominantly in Cantonese, and I'll take that. If this is an example of the rules being relaxed slowly, then I'm all for it because nothing, absolutely nothing, beats having to hear the cast emoting in their natural voices, rather than to have someone else step in to voice-over their roles. And of course, if we all don't turn into gangsters or start speaking Cantonese en masse, I think the film would've made the point that not everyone will be negatively influenced by such baseless concerns to begin with.

I smell change coming already, and let's hope it really does with Vengeance being that small step taken in the right direction!

In Macau, a family is attacked by three killers and only the wife survives severely wounded. Her father, the French chef Francis Costello (Johnny Hallyday), travels to Macau to visit his daughter in the hospital and steals the photos of his daughter, her husband and two children from the police department to seek revenge against the killers. Costello stumbles with the independent hit-men Kwai (Anthony Wong Chau- Sang), Chu (Ka Tung Lam) and Fat Lok (Suet Lam) that are under contract with the mobster George Fung (Simon Yam) at his hotel and he hires the trio to hunt down the killers of his daughter's family. They locate the killers in Hong Kong and they travel to kill them. But they have a surprise when they discover who ordered to kill the family.

"Fuk sau" is a silly and funny action movie that follows the style of the "spaguetti" westerns, with killers killing each other. The amnesia of Francis Costello and the situations created by his mental problem are so ridiculous and unbelievable that spoils the entertaining story that becomes a comedy. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Vingança" ("Revenge")

It is not very often nowadays that you will get to see Johnnie To's new production frequently in the cinema, compared to his heydays with his working partner, Wai Kar Fai. Both had churned out several box office hit and flops during the early decade of the 21st century, and it is believe that good things are worth the wait. Vengeance is the answer to To's long awaited latest action thriller, after directing two previous productions beyond his normal scope of story line.

With his usual suspects (Anthony Wong, Simon Yam, Lam Kar Tung and Lam Suet), To recruits French rock star Johnny Hallyday to be the leading actor in the Hong Kong – France production. Nominated for Palm D'Ors in Cannes Film Festival 2009, Singapore has the opportunity to get the release of Vengeance in its original Cantonese-English version, since Hong Kong productions are barred from releasing in Cantonese version due to Singapore censorship regulation. This gives Singaporeans a true blue experience of the idea and message To wants to bring to his audience. And yes, it is a must to catch it in cinemas.

Vengeance begins with Costello (Hallyday) seeking revenge for the massacre of his daughter's family. He recruited three professional assassins, namely Kwai (Wong), Chu (Lam Kar Tung) and Lok (Lam Suet). While Kwai, Chu and Lok helps Costello in hunting down the killers responsible for the massacre, the investigation leads them to the mafia boss and employer, George Fung (Yam), who is behind the massacre.

Vengeance marks the last chapter of To's gunman trilogy (The Mission, 2001; Exiled, 2006), where the trilogy shares the same trademark of a mass gunfight, and stories revolving professional killers force to stand on the side they believed in, or made to believe in. While a mass crossfire between both conflicting sides is inevitable in To's trilogy, he never fails to surprise the audience in presenting the gunfight. Just like the mass shootout at the hotel in Exiled, Vengeance shows us with the crossfire at the garbage recycle center, where large cubes of compressed old newspaper becomes the shield for the gunmen.

Also, expect several scenes without any dialog, as To wants the audience to watch the body language, so as to do the interpretation themselves. The movie lives to the genre of an 'action flick', where body language is an action to tell the story.

Hallyday takes the leading role of Castello, which is something fresh that an audience can look forward to. Here, he is a chef with a past, where being a former professional killer, he had a short lived memory as a bullet was left in his brain. This creates a Memento like scenario, where he tracks down the people looking for using Polaroid pictures. He has the support of the three killers, who assist him in tracking down the killers behind the massacre. While there seems to be some kind of mirror reflection from Exiled, we do not see the fun elements that exist in Exiled. A sense of sorrow replaced the fun in Vengeance, where the killers do not kill for brotherhood (which explains why the fun elements steps in at Exiled), but for the sense of obligation, which slowly developed to personal revenge.

While Wong and Lam Suet were portraying similar roles in Exiled, Lam Kar Tung was given more opportunity to explore the role of the killer, compared to his minor role as a gang leader in Exiled. Similarly, Simon Yam was reprising the same role he had in Exiled, which makes no differences in both movies. Michelle Ye and Maggie Shiu, as the two leading actress, ends up being a sidekick in Vengeance, where Ye plays a pregnant woman taking care of Costello, while Shiu as the police inspector handling the massacre. This can be deduced that Vengeance is more of a masculine thriller.

In overall, Vengeance is one of the few thrillers in 2009 that must not be missed. If you love an action thriller, don't miss it. If you think that all Hong Kong thrillers are the same, Vengeance is something new that you can look at.

Oh my - When Billy The Kid met Memento met Tokyo Eyes met The Limey on steroids… The only film ever in which I enjoyed watching Johnny Hallyday. Anthony Wong is just bloody amazing, as in everything I saw with him - not much I concede, according to his length impressing filmography on IMDb.

I discovered Johnny To a few years back when The Mission came out, and since then, I am trying to watch anything he did. I skipped this one when it came out, being frightened by the infamous French/Belgian 60's idol presence - I just can't stand him as a public person. I was so wrong. Even though the first Hallyday's dialogue are just plain dreadful (the hospital scene at the beginning), Johnny To managed to take control and silence him. And the miracle works out.

When you forget even about the meaning of the word, what does vengeance means ?

Vengeance is about a Frenchman who travels to Hong Kong and Macau to avenge the murder of his daughter's family. The Memento-like riff is that he is losing his memory and so needs to take photos of people to remind himself who they are. It takes a long time before the filmmakers find a way to use this idea creatively, and then they use it really badly. What's annoying is that the movie doesn't need the memory loss lead at all, the whole movie still would work well if the guy was compos mentis, you still have a fish-out-of-water lead character, and you still have lots of material about loyalty and brotherhood.

Bloodthirsty vengeance is obviously a really bad idea, and so if you're going to make it the theme of a movie, you need either a strongly pulpy feel to the movie, or you need really stupid characters; maybe make it a samurai movie, as the sort of moral codes that existed centuries ago would make sense of the characters and their motivations here. As it is, this movie just doesn't make sense. Some of the narrative conceits are weak, like how the lead character comes across some assassins for hire randomly in his hotel. The movie also had really bad CGI, you could see the blood spurts each time someone got shot were amateurish.

I ended up being pretty annoyed, it just felt like someone had torn a first draft script from a scriptwriter's hands and just started shooting with it. Johnny Hallyday (rest in peace), is a picture of pain, but because he's been worn down by age and strife, not because he's acting it, there's nothing expressive about what he's doing in this movie. It comes across like he's involved so that the movie still got co-production money. According to Roger Ebert he was a last minute substitution for Alain Delon.

I won't deny that the movie has effective moments, the set piece at the barbecue spot at night is really good, although even that has a really stupid moment (improbable boomeranging Frisbee). I've recently watched Takashi Miike's Black Society Trilogy, and this effort from Johnnie To is absolutely light years behind those excellent movies in terms of quality. Somehow this was accepted in competition at Cannes in 2009.