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.
These characters are all friends since their youth, and there's a sense of warmth and sentimentality as the five characters come to a compromise and decide to honor friendship before duty. They decide to pull off a big score to help support the hero's wife and child before settling their differences. The result is something much more personal than the usual "It's Just Business" approach to violence in gangster movies.
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 action is clear and coherent, the story isn't always so clear. This actually helps the film's dreamlike feel, so if you just watch it for the characters and for the action, the weird, twisty-turny story won't infringe upon your enjoyment of the film and what it really does have to offer the viewer.
The Heroic Bloodshed era of Hong Kong action flicks was certainly an incredible time for film lovers. Hard Boiled and City on Fire defined the genre, being angry, explosive films, showing independent characters taking on the masses as a symbol of Hong Kong independence against Chinese communism. Lam and Woo went to Hollywood, and you could argue the qualities of their American films. Johnnie To stayed behind and turned the genre into something entirely different.
Where the classic Heroic Bloodshed films were about anger and revenge, this one is about forgiveness and compassion, and is certainly a unique, one of a kind action film, both exciting and trance like at once.
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.
These characters are all friends since their youth, and there's a sense of warmth and sentimentality as the five characters come to a compromise and decide to honor friendship before duty. They decide to pull off a big score to help support the hero's wife and child before settling their differences. The result is something much more personal than the usual "It's Just Business" approach to violence in gangster movies.
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 action is clear and coherent, the story isn't always so clear. This actually helps the film's dreamlike feel, so if you just watch it for the characters and for the action, the weird, twisty-turny story won't infringe upon your enjoyment of the film and what it really does have to offer the viewer.
The Heroic Bloodshed era of Hong Kong action flicks was certainly an incredible time for film lovers. Hard Boiled and City on Fire defined the genre, being angry, explosive films, showing independent characters taking on the masses as a symbol of Hong Kong independence against Chinese communism. Lam and Woo went to Hollywood, and you could argue the qualities of their American films. Johnnie To stayed behind and turned the genre into something entirely different.
Where the classic Heroic Bloodshed films were about anger and revenge, this one is about forgiveness and compassion, and is certainly a unique, one of a kind action film, both exciting and trance like at once.
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