Sadly, what almost ended as a solid 7 ended up dropping to a 6 because of a really poorly done shootout scene. I really couldn't take it seriously. I had to facepalm the moment I saw that horrendously unrealistic scenario.
I gave some points for Zhang (Sun) doing a great job acting as the captain of the task force and performing his part extremely well. I liked how they had him play as a con artist, pretending to be various different drug lords. He was basically my favourite character throughout the movie.
At the very beginning, I was extremely bothered with the script telling Tian (Koo) to just give in to the police without even a little retaliation. This just isn't realistic at all. What kind of high profile drug dealer just gives in to the police without even trying to feign innocence? This kept bothering me throughout the movie because he continues to do it throughout, selling his colleagues out to the police in the blink of an eye without even trying to fight back.
The director tried to be unique by making about every drug dealer completely different. You have some drivers who are stoned out of their minds when they shouldn't be, you have a group of dealers who are deaf, you have one who constantly laughs hysterically, and you have somebody who talks doubles. The list goes on. I mean really, is every drug lord so radically different? This wasn't very realistic. But whatever.
However, that wasn't really the factor that affected the movie so much. It was the final shootout scene that was a complete failure. It not only stalled time, it had no point, didn't solve any actual problem, and was just plain stupid from start to finish.
It's hard to explain my pain with this scene without explicitly spoiling it, if I haven't spoiled enough already. Hence the spoiler warning. You're plagued with infinite ammo, diehards who don't die even when they're shot many times, and those opposite the diehards who just die in a single random shot. But that's not the worst of it. The worst comes when the main antagonist essentially survives and kills everybody else.
I'm not sure what people liked about the movie. There wasn't even a message to the plot. It was just your average ordinary drug case. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. This movie has the beginning and middle, but no end. This movie just ends as "Everybody dies, the end.". Really, that seriously disappointed me.
You're free to watch the movie if you wish, but from what I've seen of Louis Koo and Johnnie To within the last few years, this is once again another movie you can safely avoid the pain of watching.
I gave some points for Zhang (Sun) doing a great job acting as the captain of the task force and performing his part extremely well. I liked how they had him play as a con artist, pretending to be various different drug lords. He was basically my favourite character throughout the movie.
At the very beginning, I was extremely bothered with the script telling Tian (Koo) to just give in to the police without even a little retaliation. This just isn't realistic at all. What kind of high profile drug dealer just gives in to the police without even trying to feign innocence? This kept bothering me throughout the movie because he continues to do it throughout, selling his colleagues out to the police in the blink of an eye without even trying to fight back.
The director tried to be unique by making about every drug dealer completely different. You have some drivers who are stoned out of their minds when they shouldn't be, you have a group of dealers who are deaf, you have one who constantly laughs hysterically, and you have somebody who talks doubles. The list goes on. I mean really, is every drug lord so radically different? This wasn't very realistic. But whatever.
However, that wasn't really the factor that affected the movie so much. It was the final shootout scene that was a complete failure. It not only stalled time, it had no point, didn't solve any actual problem, and was just plain stupid from start to finish.
It's hard to explain my pain with this scene without explicitly spoiling it, if I haven't spoiled enough already. Hence the spoiler warning. You're plagued with infinite ammo, diehards who don't die even when they're shot many times, and those opposite the diehards who just die in a single random shot. But that's not the worst of it. The worst comes when the main antagonist essentially survives and kills everybody else.
I'm not sure what people liked about the movie. There wasn't even a message to the plot. It was just your average ordinary drug case. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. This movie has the beginning and middle, but no end. This movie just ends as "Everybody dies, the end.". Really, that seriously disappointed me.
You're free to watch the movie if you wish, but from what I've seen of Louis Koo and Johnnie To within the last few years, this is once again another movie you can safely avoid the pain of watching.