t-d-t-m82 Johnnie To has created a movie based on very simple background of police force attacking a desperate team of hit men captured on the run after a heist. Johnnie To is starting to really specialise in this genre which is nice as it is so refreshing to see it done outside the Hollywood narrow minded frame of completely OTT everything.Although this film does have a few hit issues. Like how many bullets can a guy take? How long can one scene stay strong (we're talking 7 minutes here folks!)? Can one opening scene be this long yet the action so extremely violent and snappy? Can audiences tolerate the glamour of the action yet cry for the broken family in the middle? Can the audience relate to the ultra threat of TV used by the killers for their own advantage as much as the cop's own advantage? This film is just a really fun outing of action; thrills, stunning cinematography with a very heavy extra cast in police uniform. This one has an added dose of family drama and TV station morality (ala Dog Day Afternoon). In this case it's more of the dangerous angle of a TV crew. The news has had such an epic presence in the years and the film just turns news on its head.Instead of the news becoming the standby it becomes the core of the film. It's a tale of struggle for power over the TV station in a big Hong Kong flat block.I for one am a bit tedius of Hollywood action and find this film inviting although you really should not take it to seriously with the shots fired and how many times should that guy be dead issue? Come on. Just look at the drivel which Hollywood makes us believe. They're so clueless they can only come up now with Asian remakes and comic idols from yesteryear.Brain De Palma could do a great rendition of this film as could Michael Mann. Lots of wide 35m shots would suit Mann well. Johnnie To and Michael Mann are clearly very favoursome of similar camera techniques which is fantastic. If you love 'Heat' and want to get in on more similar titles without the Hollywood bore then get more Johnnie To.A great film but please do not take body count hits seriously. It's a movie after all.

noralee "Breaking News (Dai si gein)" is one of the most urban crime thrillers I've ever seen, using the density and verticality of a modern city as an intense frame for the fast-paced action.Hong Kong here seems to have visually become like the futuristic cities with satellite cameras of "Blade Runner" and "Code 46," with almost all the action taking place with 360 degree views of narrow streets, crowded plazas, dark hallways and elevator shafts. There's a door-to-door attack in a corridor that throws down the now classic scene from "Oldboy" as so much balletic nonsense compared to this gritty but very beautiful realism, with cinematography by Siu-keung Cheng. Director Johnny To grabs our attention in the enthralling opening scene of a shoot-out on a Hong Kong street. With almost no dialog we can figure out that this is a stake-out going horribly wrong. While the scene dizzyingly must have been shot on a cherry-picker zooming up and down and around as if we are on on external elevator or hanging from windows with a zoom telephoto lens, the angles are always important as the camera swoops and narrows and broadens our view from shooter to victim to shooter to victim as we swivel to where the shots are heard. I felt like I was in the antenna of the aliens in "War of the Worlds." The visuals are always directly related to the sounds, as edited by David M. Richardson.Though I could only infer some of the internal politics within the police bureaucracy with the significance of some using English names and others traditional Chinese names amidst the various competing levels of authority, some of whom spoke stilted English, it was easy enough to pick up on the techie criminalist statistician vs. the on the ground street cop (a terrific Nick Cheung, who is like a thinking cop's Bruce Willis), let alone the difficulties a woman cop (Kelly Chen) has on the force. Her need to prove herself and her modern approach is a driving theme in the film and gives it considerable difference from a more conventional crime drama. She may be a neophyte at being in charge, but she is not an idiot.There are parallel old school/new school, gangsters vs. assassins with different rules and technology that get caught up in the siege though I wasn't sure of the details of all their intersecting plots. The criminals are considerably more charismatic than all the cops except "Inspector Cheung", and have a sense of humor during an amusing hostage taking. The instant, real-time new and old media attention in what is as much a door-to-door war between cops and criminals as in "Black Hawk Down" becomes part of their battle plans. It is as violent as a Paul Schrader or Martin Scorcese film, but has the mordant cynicism and humor of Billy Wilder, as the violence mocks the continued blandishments we see from the government officials about the falling crime rate.While script writers Hing-Ka Chan and Tin-Shing Yip may have intended the high tech PR-controlling official to be a satire like "Wag the Dog" in having controlling the press be an essential component of controlling crime, it is just a very small step beyond the NYC Police Department techniques innovated under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. So it's a running gag that a kid with access to the Web can outwit their media manipulations. Survival seems to be based more on the results of the battle for public opinion.I wasn't sure if the Hong Kong police force always looks like storm troopers or if the production design was making a political point. Clearly there was some point to the hostages being surrounded by commercial symbols of Western capitalism and culture.The music by Ben Cheung and Chi Wing Chung supports the tension very effectively, including electronica and traditional instrumentation.Unfortunately, the film as distributed in theaters in the U.S. had the worst subtitles I have ever seen. Not only are they filled with spelling and quizzical grammatical errors, as well as frequently white on white, they seem to have been translated using an antique English dictionary. The most egregious distraction is constantly calling these bloody murderers the charming appellation of "bandits" -- how about thugs or gangsters or criminals or crooks or bad asses, and so forth. Why didn't a native English speaker look over these subtitles? At least the credits were mostly bi-lingual.

wilke-mintken I've seen this movie at the Oldenburg International Fim Festival and I really have to say: It's quite good. The story - Police and its image in the media - is in interesting aspect in todays media world and it is worth to think about this relationship. This movie does right that and criticizes a too close relationship. Besides the story, the movie is a cool action-movie with a totally different style than the average western Hollywood-like action movie. Cool camera-work, nice different-angle shot and other cool stuff. It's just nice to watch. The viewer can see many shootings, but the humor does not come to short, especially the characters are quite funny. A negative aspect might be the usage of the "Bond-effect" (no bullet hits a good guy). But IMHO a cool action movie needs this effect. Otherwise there would be too many characters and there would be no development of these characters. All in All: 8/10, which means: Watch it!

Splattii This film has Hollywood written all over it. I'm sure there has to be at least one company looking to remake this for the US. Please understand by saying "Hollywood" I'm not suggesting it's good, more than I'm suggesting it fits the typical hollywood mold in terms of it's story and how it pans out.In all, I enjoyed this film. It's really fast paced and full of action, and has some beautiful shots of the city throughout. I would classify this in the same category as a Die Hard or something along those lines. Unfortunately I'm not a big "hollywood" fan, so I was expecting a bit more...and to be honest outside of the ending I wasn't let down.I have to be honest and say if the ending twisted the other way as opposed to the way it did, I would have scored this a 10. Unfortunately I'll give it somewhere between a 7 and 8 as the ending, although not bad, really didn't have the impact it should have, and caused the film to fall a bit short.On the other hand, if I went to a theatre (I'm in Canada) to see this, I would have enjoyed it because it's better than most Hollywood films. I guess it's all relative. If you enjoy movies like Die Hard or Speed, this film is for you. I can honestly say it outshines most American action films in the last couple of years.I don't want to give a lot away, but the story really is a good one, and the action is top notch. I'm sure if the movie isn't picked up, it will be re-done in another form with the same thesis being present in the film.