Drug War

毒战

China/Hong Kong, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 105 mins.

Director: Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To].

Associate director: Mai Qiguang 麦启光.

Rating: 7/10.

The first Mainland crime movie by Hong Kong director Du Qifeng [Johnnie To] is quirky, playful and much more hit than miss.

STORY

Jinhai, a port city in northeast China, the present day. After an explosion in his cocaine factory that kills his wife and her two brothers, Cai Tianming (Gu Tianle), 39, from Hong Kong, escapes in his car but later crashes into a restaurant under the influence of drugs. Meanwhile, at the city’s highway toll station, drug dealer Li Guangcheng is arrested by Jinhai Anti-Drug Squad members, led by undercover cop Zhang Lei (Sun Honglei) and his colleagues Yang Xiaobei (Huang Yi), Xu Guoxiang (Gao Yunxiang) and Guo Weijun (Zhong Hanliang). Cai Tianming is taken to the same hospital where Li Guangcheng and his gang are being forced to evacuate the cocaine pods they’re carrying inside their bodies; when a pod bursts inside one carrier, Cai Tianming tries to escape during the panic but is caught by Zhang Lei and his team. Told he is liable for the death sentence unless he co-operates, Cai Tianming agrees to help Zhang Lei break the whole network, which includes buyer HaHa (Hao Ping), supplier Li Zhenbiao (Li Zhenqi) and his associate Li Shuchang (Tan Kai). At the hotel where Cai Tianming is to do a deal, Zhang Lei poses as Li Shuchang and accompanies Cai Tianming to meet HaHa and his wife (Gan Tingting). HaHa has grandiose ambitions of joining up with drug sellers in Northeast China, South Korea and Japan, and wants Li Shuchang to arrange a meeting for him with supplier Li Zhenbiao. HaHa is taken in by the deception and leaves. As the real Li Shuchang arrives – spaced out on cocaine – Zhang Lei poses as HaHa and eventually convinces Li Shuchang to set up a meeting with Li Zhenbiao in Yuejiang – but only after being forced to share some cocaine that almost kills him. The same night, Zhang Lei and Cai Tianming take a high-speed train south to Ezhou, central China, where Cai Tianming has another factory, run by two deaf-and-dumb brothers (Guo Tao, Li Jing), in which Cai Tianming plants hidden police cameras. Zhang Lei & Co. then take a high-speed train to Yuejiang to meet Li Zhenbiao; but the latter reschedules the meeting at the last moment to Jinhai. As Zhang Lei tightens the net around all the drug dealers, he is still not sure whether Cai Tianming will go back on their deal.

REVIEW

It’s been a long courtship between Du Qifeng 杜琪峰 [Johnnie To] and China. Over 30 years ago the Hong Kong director-producer shot his first feature there – costume martial arts drama The Enigmatic Case 碧水寒山夺命金 (1980) – but subsequently didn’t return to the Mainland. Finally, To’s attitude seems to be changing. After including a few China scenes in his rom-com Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 单身男女 (2011), and then shooting a whole film there (Romancing in Thin Air 高海拔之恋II, 2012), he’s now made his first contemporary action movie that’s both set in China and funded by Mainland companies. Despite using his regular team of writers and technicians, as well as many actors he’s worked with before, Drug War 毒战 is more than just a Hong Kong graft onto the body China. Du has modified his style to take account of the Mainland’s different look and more spacious geography, as well as appearing to be newly energised by the challenge of what he can get away with.

The result is a playful movie, motored by a typically poe-faced performance by Mainland star Sun Honglei 孙红雷 (I Do 我愿意, 2012; Lethal Hostage 边境风云, 2012) as a determined drugs cop, that doesn’t quite hang together as a whole but has some fine sections and an overall cold realism that doesn’t stem just from the wintry setting. (The final scene has no equal in any of Du’s previous movies.) If he chooses to pursue the new avenues opened up, Drug War could mark a fresh beginning for Du as an action director, rather than remain a one-off challenge he’s clearly had some fun in taking on.

Unlike Romancing, which could have been set in a mountain resort anywhere for all the use it made of the Mainland, Drug War was clearly shot in China (mostly around Tianjin, in the northeast). From the desolate industrial locations to wide streets, it’s immediately clear this is not Du’s usual stomping-ground of congested Hong Kong or Macau. The film makes good use of the country’s different topography: a bag-exchange between cars in a typically broad thoroughfare, a power-game involving boats in a port, and the way in which the cops take high-speed trains from one location to another. The widescreen photography by regular d.p. Zheng Zhaoqiang 郑兆强 [Cheng Siu-keung] also has the colder, grittier look of Mainland crime movies and TV series rather than the fancier, warmer lighting of Hong Kong ones.

On a story and character level, Du and lead writer Wei Jiahui 韦家辉 [Wai Ka-fai] push the comic elements to the extreme (and sometimes beyond): a whole drug factory managed by a deaf-and-dumb family (one of whom is played by Mainland comic Guo Tao 郭涛), a whole section in the middle that revolves round Sun’s cop hamming it up in two contrasted roles, a pair of coked-out drug transporters, and the last-minute introduction of a set of new characters played by members of Du’s Hong Kong repertory team like Lin Xue 林雪 [Lam Suet], Lin Jiadong 林家栋 [Gordon Lam], Zhang Zhaohui 张兆辉 and Ye Xuan 叶璇 [Michelle Ye].

The last of these ideas really doesn’t work, introducing a jokey and distracting element when the film should be moving towards a finale with its existing characters. Many of Du’s films dip dramatically around the 70-minute mark, before gearing up again for an action finale, and Drug War is no different. In this case, it’s a shootout set outside – gasp! – a primary school, a cheeky idea that manages to get the movie over its dramatic hump and on to the final, final shootout in a safer area.

Elaborately choreographed, and with no lack of power because of China’s stricter regulations on screen violence, the action sequences are enough to keep Du’s bang-bang fans satisfied, especially with director Zheng Baorui 郑保瑞 [Soi Cheang] (Accident 意外, 2009; Motorway 车手, 2012) in charge of second-unit work. One sequence in particular – a drug factory shootout an hour in that’s not accompanied by any music – is particularly effective. Where the film is weaker is in the central relationship between Sun’s drug cop and the cocaine merchant-turned-informer of Hong Kong actor Gu Tianle 古天乐 [Louis Koo]. In his 10th Du outing, Gu, as in Romancing, downplays his matinee-idol looks but is really no equal for the more versatile Sun: with no real screen chemistry between the two, or sense of any cat-and-mouse, the underlying theme of the two locked together (sometimes literally) in a life-or-death game doesn’t have the dramatic power intended.

The other main cast are largely good, especially the striking Huang Yi 黄奕 (Gu’s manager in Romancing) as a hard-nosed drugs cop and Tan Kai 谭凯 as a smacked-out middleman. Xavier Jamaux’s atmospheric, burbly music is effective in knitting together disparate scenes into longer paragraphs, and the Mandarin re-voicing for Gu is a good match. With its constant shifts of tone, and deliberately opaque approach to plotting, Drug War keeps the audience on its toes and largely engaged. It will be interesting to see whether Du and his team follow it up with more movies outside their Hong Kong comfort zone.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Hairun Pictures (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), China Movie Channel (CN). Produced by Beijing Hairun Pictures (CN), Milkyway Film Production (HK).

Script: Wei Jiahui [Wai Ka-fai], You Naihai, Chen Rui, Yu Xi. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: Liang Zhanlun. Editing supervision: David Richardson. Music: Xavier Jamaux. Art direction: Ma Guangrong [Horace Ma]. Costume design: Wang Baoyi. Sound: Zhu Zhixia, Ye Junhao. Action: Yi Tianxiong. Car stunt: Chen Mengchang. Visual effects: Luo Weihao (Different Digital Design). Second unit direction: Zheng Baorui [Soi Cheang].

Cast: Sun Honglei (Zhang Lei, police captain), Gu Tianle [Louis Koo] (Cai Tianming/Timmy), Huang Yi (Yang Xiaobei), Zhong Hanliang [Wallace Chung] (Guo Weijun), Gao Yunxiang (Xu Guoxiang), Li Guangjie (Chen Shixiong), Guo Tao (Da Long/Senior Dumb), Li Jing (Xiao Long/Junior Dumb), Lu Haipeng (Que/Birdie), Zhang Zhaohui [Cheung Siu-fai] (Su), Lin Jiadong [Gordon Lam] (Li A Dong/East Lee), Ye Xuan [Michelle Ye] (Sa/Sal), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Fat Cheng), Wu Tingye (Hatred), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Darkie), Gan Tingting (HaHa’s wife), Hao Ping (HaHa), Cheng Taishen (Liu, police captain), Zi Yi (Lin), Xiao Cong, Gao Xin (drivers), Yin Zhusheng (snake head), Wang Zixuan (Ming’s wife), Tan Kai (Li Shuchang), Li Zhenqi (Li Zhenbiao/Uncle Bill/Bill Li).

Premiere: Rome Film Festival (Competition, surprise film), 15 Nov 2012.

Release: China, 2 Apr 2013; Hong Kong, 18 Apr 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 16 Nov 2012.)