The Mission

A confused film which I think might have started out as something entertaining but was cut down to a barely comprehensible mess in the end.

Anti-heroic bloodshed.

the pre-story of exiled. not hot as it but it has the same cool atmosphere of badguy friendships.

Surprising layer of complexity for this sort of movie. Also surprising in how little I cared about any of it.

Standard action flick with a few good action scenes, a nice enough ending and not a lot more. The score was veeery cheesy.

A miss from To, normally one of the best action filmmakers in the world. And the action is really good, it's just that I never really connected to the characters or felt the stakes had enough weight. Also, awful soundtrack.

Deeply terrible MIDI-inspired synth score almost ruined this for me, to be honest--both in terms of it sounding awful and being used way, way too often as a leitmotif, where otherwise the sequences would have much benefitted from the simple sound of silence.

Allegedly shot in 12 days with no script, the film's effectiveness lies in its efficiency, its integrity, and its believable camaraderie between the leads. The third act goes to show the Mission with our amicable gang boss is not Johnnie To's focus at all, but is instead the conflict of loyalty with brotherhood. To's method of production lends a very special clarity to the theme.

Stylish and very well paced action. I didn't always know what was going on, but the important parts, the characters and their relative interactions, were always clear and it all comes together at the end.

the most accessible crime film i've seen of to's so far - think OCEAN'S ELEVEN but far cooler, funnier and with more on its mind about dehumanisation, agency & honour, which reaps emotional rewards. it also offers any budding student of the action genre a sterling education; to not only understands how to utilise any environment but to convey its geography with crystal clarity, and to choreograph the people and events within it in ways that reveal character and enhance mood.

I very rarely stop watching. I gave this movie 3 chances to recover from useless confusion, but after 40 minutes I was still watching random guys shooting at other random dudes for no apparent reason. If you want to make a shoot'em up style film, at least give us some kind of hero/anti-hero.

Há 20 anos estreava em Hong Kong. Acredite se quiser, mas este é meu primeiro Johnnie To e não há arrependimentos, pois tudo aqui transpira cool. DVDRip no MakingOff.