Guerra às Drogas

I'm not terribly familiar with Johnnie To's work, though I know he is one of China's biggest directors. Drug War is his latest film, a critically hailed masterpiece, so to speak, that rivals some of the best American crime films. And for the most part, it is a very good film. Gripping, with a tight rope plot written like a maze, Drug War very rarely lets up as it navigates from one stage of the plot to the other.

The film opens with Timmy Choi, a drug manufacturer, driving erratically until he runs through the entrance of a restaurant until he ends up in the hands of Captain Zhang. For dealing the amount of drugs that Choi is responsible for, the penalty is death, but Choi cuts a deal to help the police bring down a drug lord responsible for the sale of the narcotics. What follows is a near non-stop mission to get into the heart of the drug dealers and bring them down.

Drug War is the kind of crime action thriller that is very audience pleasing. There is plenty of suspense and mystery, as you're always on the edge of your seat in anticipation of what will happen next. It doesn't help that you're never quite sure who to trust or who will do what, especially Choi, who remains shifty and unsure. Sun Honglei is especially entertaining as the no nonsense Zhang, whose smart and constantly does his best to stay one step ahead of all those he's trying to bring down, including Choi. The writing for the film is very intricate and full of surprises. Coupling this are several action set pieces, the highlight of which are a middle section involving the police and two very capable partners of Choi and the ending, which is an absolutely crazy finale for this film.

If I have one real complaint about the film, it's the lack of depth. For all the technical skill and excellent writing and plot, we really don't get to know any of our characters. There is an attempt to make Choi somewhat sympathetic through a plot point about his wife, but Choi himself never really does much to make us like him or get us on his side. The same can be said about Zhang, who is little more than a hard nose cop trying to catch the criminals. There's never any real insight into either of these men, let alone the rest of the cast. It's a very basic and shallow cops and criminals tale, albeit, a very well written and produced one.

But these are minor complaints in the face of the entertainment at hand. This is arguably one of the best films of 2013, even at it's rating, and I urge anyone looking for to make up for some theatrical thuds to check this out. It's well worth it.

Gripping, smart, and a joy to watch.

The acting is excellent and the main leads are my favorite. Honglei, a hardened narcotic cop, is collected, methodological, and intelligent. You can tell he has earned his keep and has seen some crazy things behind those eyes. He's like the calm before the storm, readily break loose. He leads a high profiled operation to bust possibly the largest drug ring in the counntry and his lead is Louis, a captured meth supplier. Louis is not to be outshone: calculated, cunning, and above all, selfish. I find his character to be easily one of the greatest villains for he appears harmless but you can't really know what he has in mind. One scene you might think he has repented, another scene he might convince you otherwise. He is a great villain because he's deceptive, cunning, selfish, and he's willing to do anything for survival, including turning against his own kin but the catch is that he doesn't look capable of such evil. That's why he's great. Appearance is deceiving. The two main leads are completely opposite. The cop appears cold, distanced, and seemingly emotionless yet pursues a good cause and cares for his underlings while the crook appears warmer, more expressive, seemingly harmless yet inhuman underneath. Great contrast. The story is tight, the actions are neat - the shootout between the mute brothers and the cops and the grand finale scene are superb. A battle of both brain and brawn.

Police captain Zhang (played by Sun Honglei) partners with a drug lord named Timmy Choi (played by Louis Koo) after he is arrested. To avoid the death penalty, Choi agrees to reveal information about his partners who operate a cocaine ring. Zhang grows suspicious of Choi's honesty as several police officers began a raid on the drug ring.

Drug War is a crime film made and released in Mainland China by a Hong Kong film company. Naturally there is going to be an element of political compromise. All the policemen are Mainland Chinese and all the drug dealers are from Hong Kong (Take a guess which side wins in the end). Nationalism in movies has never really bothered me unless it borders on being disgusting (i.e. Michael Bay's Armageddon). That is not the case here and I don't have a problem with that. My interest is not the politics, but rather what Johnnie To will bring to drug film set in Mainland China. The answer? Not too much.

What's missing from Drug War are the Johnnie To quirks. The zany off-the-wall characters who have speech impediments and odd ticks are gone. The dramatic noir lighting, minimalistic stage-like blocking or themes of brotherhood are gone. Even the gunplay is less stylized and presented in a realistic fashion. I don't miss any of these specific quirks or tropes, but without the idiosyncratic Johnnie To stamp, what's left is a very straightforward police procedural.

The characters are servicing the plot, which is odd for a Johnnie To film because usually it's the other way round. We don't get insight into the distinct personalities of the drug dealers or police officers and their relationships (like in Election, an ensemble piece where it manages to characterize the supporting characters). We don't know if they have family members or girlfriends waiting for them at home or any backstory. The story is simply moving beat-by-beat linearly on the central question of how trustworthy Louis Koo's drug lord character is. There's nobody you're supposed to be rooting for, but things are continually changing and you simply watch awaiting the final outcome.

To, a director and producer with his own production company, has always been best when he has free reign. The limits of To's free reign authorship is that he is very culturally rooted to Hong Kong and possesses a firm voice regarding to its politics (Election), economic condition (Life Without Principle), daily life in Hong Kong (the office politics in Needing You), or even local nostalgia (Throwdown, Sparrow). As exemplified in 2008's Vengeance, a project which was co- financed by French financiers and starred French rock singer Johnny Halliday, To's directorial voice is weaker when he steps outside of his comfort zone. There is no sense of To's personal perspective on the topic of drug running, drug addiction, crime or how the police work in China through the film's story, themes or characters. That makes a bit tame because To has fared much better in the past.

In context to Johnnie To's back catalogue, Drug War will be remembered for pushing the boundaries with the Chinese Film Bureau. The Mainland police are shown working undercover and solving crimes, having gun battles with criminals and some even dying in the line of duty; these are all images that were previously not allowed to be shown in a Mainland theatrical release. Yet now we are seeing them on screen. So that is a proper achievement that's worth celebrating. The final product is probably more telling of Chinese film censorship than of To's directorial sensibilities. But I can't help but think that there is a grittier, nuttier version of Drug War lying in the corner of Johnnie To's desk that is stamped "rejected", namely the version of the story that he didn't get to make.

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I have to confess here in Canada I have no previous exposure to films by Hong Kong directors Johnnie To. Obviously he has done good work before but I just did not have the chance to see them. 'Drug War' was shown in a local art-house cinema and my like-minded friend alerted me to it.

Well, this was an interesting film experience - a Hong Kong director doing a police/drug dealer drama based in mainland China. Although other fictitious names were used for the cities, it is obvious the final, major shootout took place in a main street in Tianjin, a large city not far from Beijing. And much has been said about the long, protracted shoot-out scene toward the end, done in the John-Woo-ish manner.

I do not know if the version shown in mainland China - apparently the film did well in the box office there - is the same version that I saw in Canada. However, I suspected the China version has to be slightly edited. Still, (Spoiler Alert!) Johnnie To managed to get a film approved for the Chinese audience despite breaking one important rules: four desperadoes gunning down a large number of police officers, male and female. Now this used to be a big no-no in China. The police had to come up on top and the bad guys punished. The mass killing of cops was never presented to any screen in Chinese cinema. And then there is the lesser scene of RMB (Chinese currency) bills being burnt in place of 'ghost money' to honour the dead. Now this may just be part of drama but one can also argue about its possible political significance.

All in all, for a cops-against-bad-guys film this is well directed, with action scenes well staged and the cops and criminals well portrayed. There are also finer moments exploring humanity - e.g. a drug dealer's wife, fatally shot, still struggled to put her high-heel boots back on while dodging bullets. The ending is a tad depressing but is mostly likely closer to reality.

So which side is our man on? That's the question in this drug mafia movie where the police have found a way to take down a major drug crew, but have to use one of their key arrests to help them. However, who is he playing for and with? This is a clever and ambitious little movie. Well directed and acted, this film takes influence from others in the genre (such as The Wire) but maps out its own story, and it's really interesting.

The Far East has a rich history of mafia movies, and this isn't amongst the classics, but that doesn't devalue it. It still is a fine film, with good directing and acting. Some interesting characters too.

Very much worth watching.