An intriguing setting and several witty, inventive directorial touches raise this above the average Hong Kong gangster thriller.
Exiled (2007)
Rated: 15
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Theatrical Release: 15-06-2007
Synopsis: For the first time since The Mission in 1999, Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs) and Francis Ng (Infernal Affairs 2) once again team up with Johnnie To and his regulars Roy Cheung (Infernal Affairs 2), Lam Suet (PTU), and Simon Yam (Election) in another action-packed ensemble piece Exiled.... For the first time since The Mission in 1999, Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs) and Francis Ng (Infernal Affairs 2) once again team up with Johnnie To and his regulars Roy Cheung (Infernal Affairs 2), Lam Suet (PTU), and Simon Yam (Election) in another action-packed ensemble piece Exiled. Joining this virile cast are Richie Jen and Nick Cheung, both of whom worked previously with Johnnie To in Breaking News, as well as new collaborator Josie Ho (Butterfly). The time is 1998. The setting is Macau. Every living soul jumps at every chance to make quick money before the Portuguese colony ushers in a new era under the Chinese rule. For the jaded hit men, they wonder where this journey will end. Against this background of fin-de-siècle malaise come two hit men from Hong Kong sent to take out a renegade member trying to turn over a new leaf with his wife and newborn baby. They soon find themselves in the throes of a dilemma when two of their former associates also show up, intent on thwarting them at every cost. --© Magnolia Films [More]
Genre: Action/Adventure
Starring: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Roy Cheung, Lam Suet, Simon Yam
Screenwriter: Szeto Kam Yuen, Yip Tin Shing
Producer: Johnnie To
Director: Cheng Siu Keung
Composer: Guy Zerafa
DVD Info
Release:
Apr 12, 2007
DVD Features:
- Keep Case
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround - Cantonese, English
- Dolby Digital - Cantonese
- Subtitles - Spanish - Optional
Reviews
offers no decent characters, crawls along and often doesn’t make sense – it’s simply a mechanism to deliver a gun battle every 20 minutes. Those shootouts are good, just not good enough to stop you looking at your watch.
What's Cantonese for "badass"? It fits adjectivally with this very enjoyable action thriller with a bracing touch of political satire, from Johnny To
An ultra-violent riff on Western genre conventions by way of the East, the film adds little new to To’s efficiently bloody oeuvre, but it’s great fun.
Stylish tough guy mayhem that looks great but drags its feet going nowhere new. Election still gets the vote for Johnny To's best film.
With not enough balls to be fun, and not enough brain to be cerebral, there’s not much going on behind those pained Western expressions to entertain.
It’s cool, thematically involving, knowing and sustained in its tension. Are you watching, Michael Mann?
To call Exiled Johnnie To's finest film would be an understatement.
An electric, inventive amalgam of gonzo violence and lyrical sentimentality.
A simmering pot of blood and yucks, accented with guitar and harmonica on the soundtrack.
Less a movie than a phantasmagorical dream synthesised from Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah.
The finale is a slow-motion tour de force that blends style, elegance and nuance of character in showers of blood.
A brilliant reminder of the glory days of Heroic Bloodshed ... call it a flashback, a comeback, or the end of an era; all I know is that I want to see it again.
It's a fantasy of a crime epic, to be sure, but it's a glorious fantasy in which the unspoken bonds of brotherhood bathe every shootout and sacrifice in the light of myth.
... possibly the best work the prolific filmmaker has done. In addition to the masterful blend of humor and action ... Exiled is the most beautifully shot movie so far this year.
It looks slick, but without a little more steak beneath that sizzle, the pretense becomes intolerable.
Exiled is creative and bizarre, maybe too bizarre, but since most action films adhere to a cookie-cutter formula, its quirkiness is most welcome.
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