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An officer attempting to manipulate the media to improve the public image of the police during a hostage situation is confounded by a rogue cop and a group of organized, internet-savvy bandits. There was the opportunity to make a clever statement about the role of the media as it relates to actual police work, but it mostly gets chucked aside in favor of extended scenes of bullet blasting mayhem. Thankfully, Johnnie To is really good at filming shoot em ups, and this is an exciting one.

Good fast paced plot and action with suspense as well. The only niggle is so many misses at short range in the many shootouts (is that realistic? I simply don't know). Action as it should be done without lengthy gabfests to kill the pace. Well worth a watch.

a meta-hostage movie that exhaustively (exhaustingly?) highlights how all sides frame and shape its events through media, with to's capablanca-esque precision well suited to cleanly mapping such relations, but surprisingly the script carries too much of the load here. themes don't inhabit form as thoroughly as i've come to expect, and the set pieces (at least one of which is admittedly a tour-de-force) and warm character wrinkles can only do so much to prevent the sub- from swamping the text.

Johnnie To is really out here son'ing modern action directors. happy belated Father's Day to him.

Viewed May 14, 2021.

Star Rating: ★★★1/2

Interesting media manipulation theme; Kelly Chen is great and the ending is good

"The story's unrefined point about media one-upmanship is crudely spaced out across the film's terse 90 minutes." - Ed Gonzalez

The 7 minute, elaborate opening crane shot is like Touch of Evil for the modern era, and there's another one at the climax (on a steadicam) to bookend the whole affair.

Amazing, ambitious movie with a new height to soar every time the plot twists in on itself again.

Love me some Johnny To.

Quality film with an amazing opening. JOHHHHHNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It's as slick and cool as you'd expect from To, but only in occasional bursts.