Who wants to see a free bloodbath before breakfast today?
Hong Kong has a long history of good action cinema, but this movie didn't seem that good and interesting to me. Many people love it, they say it is wonderful, and I accept that very well, I think that everyone has their own tastes, but the truth is that the film did not work for me. Sounds like an excuse for an action movie.
John Woo is a director I don't know very well. I liked “The Killer” and, therefore, I decided to see this film: it is considered, by many people, one of the director's best. They're not even alike. It is noted that it is the same director, there is a certain style and look, and some shooting options, which are in both films, but we lack a good script, a convincing story. From the middle, sensibly, the director's brutality and bloodlust lose the brake: in minutes, we watch in the armchair what we can only classify as a gratuitous bloodbath (false, obviously).
I would like to talk a little about the actors, but I felt that none of them has the time, space and material to represent a character properly. They are there to kill or die, according to the wishes and desires of the Machiavellian Woo, who abuses visual effects, brutality, the toughest and most soulless action that we can see on a cinema screen. Loaded with graphic effects that accompany a cinematography worthy of an industrial rock music video, the film takes us from massacre to massacre and, before halfway through, we already begin to doubt that there is a live cast. In truth, and to be fair, the film also has the grace of being quite immersive, be it for the good use of sound effects, be it for its magnificently adequate soundtrack, be it for the fast and visceral filming. We are part of that, we are there. And that makes it even harder to bear, depending on how insensitive you can be.
