June 17, 2007
Exiled plays like an elegiac western, evoking Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, as two ageing Hong Kong hitmen arrive in modern day Macau to kill a renegade member who's trying to turn a new leaf. But when two former associates try to prevent the hit, old allegiances are put in the balance.
Set amid the colorful towns and landscapes of Portuguese Macau, Exiled showcases To’s undoubted visual flair. But the set-pieces are few. Interesting, then, that the UK trailer should major on the slo-mo gunplay which takes up only a few minutes of screen-time. Clearly the UK distributors didn't know quite how to pitch it. In desperation they called it “action-packed”.
But that just doesn’t do justice to To’s intention or to audience expectation. True, the days of John Woo’s bullet-ballets and Ringo Lam’s lurid, feverish thrillers are gone. 21st century Hong Kong thrillers are low-key, quiet affairs, mature even – but not especially thrilling.
Visual panache is still a trademark. So too bravura gunplay – as To’s more populist Fulltime Killer and Breaking News attest. But the recent trend for meandering movies like Exiled, PTU and Derek Yee’s One Night in Mongkok seems symbolically to suggest that Hong Kong cinema has lost its way.
Set amid the colorful towns and landscapes of Portuguese Macau, Exiled showcases To’s undoubted visual flair. But the set-pieces are few. Interesting, then, that the UK trailer should major on the slo-mo gunplay which takes up only a few minutes of screen-time. Clearly the UK distributors didn't know quite how to pitch it. In desperation they called it “action-packed”.
But that just doesn’t do justice to To’s intention or to audience expectation. True, the days of John Woo’s bullet-ballets and Ringo Lam’s lurid, feverish thrillers are gone. 21st century Hong Kong thrillers are low-key, quiet affairs, mature even – but not especially thrilling.
Visual panache is still a trademark. So too bravura gunplay – as To’s more populist Fulltime Killer and Breaking News attest. But the recent trend for meandering movies like Exiled, PTU and Derek Yee’s One Night in Mongkok seems symbolically to suggest that Hong Kong cinema has lost its way.