If you're looking for an action flick that's a little different from the usual shaky cam and incoherent running and shooting, Exiled may be the answer. It belongs on any movie downloads queue for the way that it manages to create a strange, dreamlike trance in its action through slow motion and unpredictable developments.
We follow a gangster who betrayed his boss years ago, and his since gotten married and had a baby. The boss sends a couple of hitmen to take him out, while at the same time, two other former members of the gang show up to protect him. This is where the movie begins.
The five characters are all friends, and so, after a quick, and dazzling shootout, they come to a compromise. Where most gangster movies are fairly cold and impersonal when it comes to "whacking" people, this one is oddly sweet and sentimental, and the five decide to pull off a big score to support the wife and child of the lead character before settling any other business they might have together.
This movie comes from Johnnie To, the legendary Hong Kong director who came up around the same time as John Woo and Ringo Lam, in the Heroic Bloodshed era. Where those movies were driven by anger at the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, Exiled was made after the takeover, when it was shown that things hadn't changed quite as much as the Hong Kong people were expecting.
The film really feels like a dream, with slow motion shootouts taking several minutes while only carrying about thirty seconds of action were they to be shot in real time. One incredible sequence has a character throwing an empty drink can into the air, and the shootout takes place over several minutes as the can falls to the floor in slow motion just seconds after the final bullet is fired.
The story is fairly confusing. You have to simply watch it for the emotional drive of the characters, because the plot line is all over the place, however, this actually helps the movie's dream like quality. Even the director has said that he didn't know exactly what was going on while directing the film, and was hoping that he would figure it out in editing. When that didn't work out, he decided that, maybe someday, it'll make sense.
The genre of Heroic Bloodshed was defined by angry violence, often showing one man up against an army as a parallel to the independent people of Hong Kong and their anger against the Communist China. After Woo and Lam went to Hollywood, Johnnie To stayed behind and redefined the genre on his own terms, turning it into something a little less vitriolic.
Exiled is a rare action film, and certainly one to see if you want something a little different than the usual shaky-cam shootout flick. It's really a refreshing breath of fresh air if you're sick and tired of not being able to tell who's shooting who and how the heck that guy got on the roof. Definitely a change of pace.
We follow a gangster who betrayed his boss years ago, and his since gotten married and had a baby. The boss sends a couple of hitmen to take him out, while at the same time, two other former members of the gang show up to protect him. This is where the movie begins.
The five characters are all friends, and so, after a quick, and dazzling shootout, they come to a compromise. Where most gangster movies are fairly cold and impersonal when it comes to "whacking" people, this one is oddly sweet and sentimental, and the five decide to pull off a big score to support the wife and child of the lead character before settling any other business they might have together.
This movie comes from Johnnie To, the legendary Hong Kong director who came up around the same time as John Woo and Ringo Lam, in the Heroic Bloodshed era. Where those movies were driven by anger at the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, Exiled was made after the takeover, when it was shown that things hadn't changed quite as much as the Hong Kong people were expecting.
The film really feels like a dream, with slow motion shootouts taking several minutes while only carrying about thirty seconds of action were they to be shot in real time. One incredible sequence has a character throwing an empty drink can into the air, and the shootout takes place over several minutes as the can falls to the floor in slow motion just seconds after the final bullet is fired.
The story is fairly confusing. You have to simply watch it for the emotional drive of the characters, because the plot line is all over the place, however, this actually helps the movie's dream like quality. Even the director has said that he didn't know exactly what was going on while directing the film, and was hoping that he would figure it out in editing. When that didn't work out, he decided that, maybe someday, it'll make sense.
The genre of Heroic Bloodshed was defined by angry violence, often showing one man up against an army as a parallel to the independent people of Hong Kong and their anger against the Communist China. After Woo and Lam went to Hollywood, Johnnie To stayed behind and redefined the genre on his own terms, turning it into something a little less vitriolic.
Exiled is a rare action film, and certainly one to see if you want something a little different than the usual shaky-cam shootout flick. It's really a refreshing breath of fresh air if you're sick and tired of not being able to tell who's shooting who and how the heck that guy got on the roof. Definitely a change of pace.
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