Drug War (2012) relocates Hong Kong director / producer Johnnie To, the most rigorous and disciplined (and the most socially observant and politically savvy) of Asian crime movie auteurs, to the Chinese mainland. He trades the urban overcrowding and overheated capitalism of Hong Kong for the open plains and lonely highways of Tianjin but otherwise […]
Three (Hong Kong, 2016) – Johnnie To is one of the top directors of action thrillers and crime drama in the world and if Three is not one of the director’s most dramatic, it is entertaining, consistently engaging, and executed with an impressive precision that turns good ideas into ingenious set pieces. Set almost entirely […]
A lavish but derivative martial arts action drama, Call of Heroes (Hong Kong, 2016) stars Sean Lau (Lau Ching-wan, Life Without Principle) as the sheriff of a village left unprotected by the army as a warlord advances and Louis Koo (Drug War) as the warlord’s sadistic son, a grinning psychopath who kills with impunity until […]
