The Mission

Dull beginning quickly paces up into one of the most unique Johnnie To movie ever.

"The Mission" is considered by many to be Johnnie To's single greatest masterpiece. It should be if it is ranked 14th in the Hong Kong Film Awards' List of The Best 100 Chinese Motion Picture. However, when I saw it for the first time, I never got the impression that this movie could be hail to such a high degree by so many critics and fans. So I went back and re-watch the movie not just once, but twice; what I ended up with was quite surprising.

The movie is about a group of bodyguards made up of Hong Kong a gang boss (Francis Ng) and his right hand man (Jackie Liu), a gun expert (Lam Suet), an assassin (The great Anthony Wong) and a sharpshooter (roy Cheung). They come together to protect Lung played by Eddy Ko against someone who tries to take him down from his position of traid boss. The movie starts from the gathering of the unique five all the way till the entire mission is over.

The film is very slow paced and extremely meticulous thanks to Johnnie To's superb direction. The movie looks into the life a a typical mission with many details that lots of people might have ignore, such as the acquiring and fine-tuning the firearm, various escort trips, sitting around at the house looking at security camera, playing paper soccer while waiting outside of the Lung, and even the emotional turmoil of the entire group when they almost lost Lung in a gun battle. This may seem very tedious to some who just hope for bullets flying action, but it serves as an important catalyst for the development of the group and input an emotional structure that many similar film lack.

When the action does get going, it's fast and unpredictable. The film has some of the most interesting and involving gun fight sequences I've ever seen that does not rely so much on the number of bullets fire but more on the intelligence of the people actually holding the gun. Even though all five of them have distinct personalities, they make quite a team when it matters. And it's interesting to see how workship slowly transcends into friendship.

I believe that the reason why I was disappointed with the film when I first saw it was because I was expecting something when the movie was actually something else. What I expected was a gun blazing crime movie when it was more of a controlled thriller drama. The movie is going to feel very slow for a lot of people, but if they can watch it with a different mentality, they would be rewarded with an exceptional movie with lots of Hong Kong style and great acting.

Year: 1999
Director: Johnnie To

8.8/10

Finally...

I haven't realize how long it has been since I last updated this blog; and to my surprise (not really...), the last movie I rated was back in July during summer. College really put a lot of time away from me (six months worth of time), but alas, this blog shall not die away.