S.W.A.T.

特警队

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 109 mins.

Director: Ding Sheng 丁晟.

Rating: 4/10.

Lacklustre encomium to Beijing’s special commando units is routine at every level.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. A driver who has crashed into another car refuses to get out when instructed by a traffic policeman and drives off with the policeman attached to his car’s bonnet. After fleeing to a metro station, where he holds a woman hostage with a knife, he is taken down by No. 2 Squad of the Beijing Blue Sword Commando Unit, led by Liu Lang (Ling Xiaosu), thanks to its young sniper Liao Xingliang (Jia Nailiang). The two SWAT teams, commanded by Zhang Rong (Chang Rong), have a strong competitive rivalry, with No. 1 Squad, led by Yan Zhong (Liu Junxiao), adopting a superior tone towards No. 2 Squad. For an anti-hijack exercise at the airport, Zhang Rong adds two women to the teams – Na Mei (Na’ernaxi) to No. 1 and, to Liu Lang’s displeasure, Guo Xiaonan (Jin Chen) to No. 2. During the exercise, No. 2 Squad, playing the anti-hijack SWAT team, succeeds in taking the plane from No. 1 Squad, playing the hijackers. Meanwhile, US drug lord Sam Moore (Robert Knepper) arrives in Beijing to meet his local distributor Hong Bing (Chunyu Shanshan), whom he suspects of manufacturing a cheaper counterfeit product, Red, from his original product Rainbow. The two SWAT teams are ordered to accompany the Anti-Drug Squad on a operation against drug supplier Xiaobai (Tony Nicolson) and his gang of black guys in a club in the city’s eastern district. Upstairs in the club, Sam Moore meets Hong Bing and demands to know where he is manufacturing Red. The police raid the club and Xiaobai escapes; but Sam Moore is arrested. However, after questioning, the police are forced to let him go, as he claims to be just a businessman, the regional director of DEN Pharmaceuticals Asia. After the raid, Yan Zhong condescendingly tells Liu Lang that No. 2 Squad performed well. Next, the SWAT teams are assigned to support a police raid on Xiaobai, who is holding a meeting on the 45th floor of a hotel. After the vertiginous operation, Xiaobai is interrogated and reveals that a big batch of Red is about to be shipped from a tiny offshore island. The police have an informer in Hong Bing’s gang and launch an operation to crush it. Zhan Rong selects six of the best from the two SWAT teams – Liu Lang, Yang Zhong, Zhao Hailong, Wen Gang, sniper Liao Xingliang and Zhang Jun. He adds Guo Xiaonan when she complains there are no women included. At the same time, Sam Moore and his men are also heading to the island to confront Hong Bing.

REVIEW

After his pointless remake A Better Tomorrow 2018 英雄本色2018, Mainland writer-director Ding Sheng 丁晟 continues his disappointing downward spiral with the even more lacklustre S.W.A.T. 特警队, a paean to Beijing’s special commando units that alternates training exercises with actual operations and wraps the whole thing round a back-of-a-coaster plot about warring drug lords (local and foreign). With its computerised script and dialogue, and absence of quirky touches and humour, it’s all a long way from Ding’s offbeat action movies like The Underdog Knight 硬汉 (2008), He-Man 硬汉2 奉陪到底 (2011) and his finest, Saving Mr. Wu 解救吾先生 (2015), all of which combined machismo, gritty realism and tough humour into an original mix. Apart from the Cheng Long 成龙 [Jackie Chan] pictures that he directed in-between, Ding’s more personal films have never been box-office hits – and S.W.A.T., with its non-star cast, continued the trend with a lame RMB57 million, even lower than Tomorrow‘s blah RMB63 million.

Co-produced by Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, the movie is bookended by encomia to the SWAT forces, including footage of real-life operations at the end. Inbetween it’s pretty much gung-ho all the way, with plenty of chest-beating in the male showers, endless clench-jawed training sessions, and generally unmemorable action (apart from a vertiginous but unbelievable setpiece abseiling down the side of a skyscraper) staged by Guo Yong 郭勇 with a team of specialist advisors. It may all be technically authentic but dramatically there’s very little going on beneath the surface to sustain an almost two-hour movie.

Individually the cast of Gen-80 actors, led by TV’s Ling Xiaosu 凌潇肃 and Jia Nailiang 贾乃亮, hardly register and, once they’re in combat gear, are difficult to tell apart anyway. In a very filmy touch, two female commandos are shoehorned into the story to make laboured points about equality and diversity, with former dancer/rhythmic gymnast Jin Chen 金晨 (good in Forever Love 201314, 2013) playing a character who keeps saying “I’m as good as a man!” 我跟男的一样！ but not getting much chance to prove it. A putative attraction between her and one of the squad doesn’t get off the ground.

The film claims to be the first Mainland production to concentrate wholly on SWAT characters. Set in Beijing, it was, like many of Ding’s movies, largely shot in his native city of Qingdao, with good-looking widescreen photography by regular d.p. Ding Yu 丁豫 (no relation). One of the film’s posters (see left, above) seems to deliberately recall one for He-Man (left, below), a comparison that does no favours to S.W.A.T.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN), Ningbo Goodtime Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (CN), Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN).

Script: Xu Yang, Ding Sheng, Jia Zhijie [Alex Jia]. Photography: Ding Yu. Editing: Ding Sheng. Music: Lao Zai [Loudboy]. Art direction: Feng Ligang. Styling: Wang Yi. Sound: Chen Chen. Action: Guo Yong. Car stunts: Wu Haitang. SWAT advice: Ji Hongliang. Tactical direction: Xin Bo, Gong Biao. Equipment direction: Wang Tao, Yu Hui. Firearms direction: Zhang Chi. Sniping direction: Yu Shuai.

Cast: Ling Xiaosu (Liu Lang), Jia Nailiang (Liao Xingliang), Jin Chen (Guo Xiaonan), Zhang Yunlong (Zhao Hailong), Liu Junxiao (Yan Zhong), Liu Wenbo (Wen Gang), Cai Xin (Zhang Jun), Chang Rong (Zhan Rong), Wang Bowen (Liu Meng), Na’ernaxi (Na Mei), Tang Yuhan (Miao Jun), Ding Yi (Dong Hui), Qiao Zhenyu (Guo Zhigang), Zhao Xiaorui (Zhang Haiqiang), Zhang Liang (Luo Gang), Chunyu Shanshan (Hong Bing), Robert Knepper (Sam Moore), Kevin Lee Plume (Tai), Tony Nicholson (Xiaobai), Sang Ping (Fu), Ma Yuke (Peng).

Release: China, 27 Dec 2019.