Title: Drug War
Well Go USA/Variance Films
Director: Johnnie To
Screenwriter: Wai Ka-fai, Johnnie To
Cast: Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Crystal Huang, Wallace Chung, Gao Yunxiang, Li Guangjie, Guo Tao, Li Jing, Lo Hoi-pang, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Michelle Ye, Lam Suet
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 7/2/13
Opens: July 26, 2013
In China the penalty for selling more than 50 mg of methamphetamine is death, which may not be the best idea. If you’re about to be caught, what would stop you from trying to kill the cops? You can’t be executed twice! That idea fuels the “Drug War,” Johnnie To’s movie said to be the first actioner to be filmed on mainland China. (This is not Mr. To’s first mainland film as he has directed rom-coms like “Romancing in thin Air” about a man whose bride leaves him at the wedding ceremony.) Johnny To is in his métier. The 58-year-old, Hong Kong-born director’s films include “Triad Election,” about a man facing drug sales competition from his godsons. “Drug War” takes place in and around Tianjin, China’s fourth largest metropolis.
If you’re prone to carsickness you may want to take this warning: at least one-third of the film’s 105 minutes takes place on the highway in vans, trucks, and vehicles. There is a limited amount of action in the first hour—just a man’s losing control of his vehicle and crashing into a movie theater after his amphetamine lab blew up, his mouth spewing forth like a rabid Doberman. The movie ends with a blaze of firepower, a veritable shooting gallery involving a SWAT-like team of officers, a band of criminals from various families of organized crime, and some vehicle crashes that might seem ho-hum to Americans brought up on local summer fare.
“Drug War” is nothing if not painfully confusing with all sorts of activities going on in various places including the aforementioned highway, a stunning hotel, various rooms housing cops with listening devices, and a hospital in which the principal character, Timmy Choi (Louis Koo) manages to escape right under the nose of police Captain Zhang Lei (Sun Honglei). Among the kaleidoscope of events that take place in the tale is an intricate operation centered on a highway tollbooth where a female cop posing as a toll collector is instrumental in capturing a group of drug mules, who are then forced to eliminate the bags of powder that they have swallowed.
In the movie’s midsection we are introduced to perhaps the most annoying character seen this year so far in the cinema, a Brother Ha Ha who laughs hysterically at the end of every sentence and who owns a fleet of scuzzy boats. (If that’s what drug criminals do with their money, taking all sorts of risks including the chance of being shot or legally executed, they can keep their jobs.) In one scene Ha Ha orders all his boats to take off in order to prove to attending crime lords that he is indeed the owner.
There’s no-one in particular that audience members might become attached to. The scenes, however violent, are clinical and generic (save for the realistic one in which drug mules squat over basins to eliminate their stash). “Drug War” is not particularly involving, though realistically it may not travel well to our shore.
Unrated. 105 minutes © 2013 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C
Acting – C+
Technical – C+
Overall – C
