A knockout year for cinema

Drug War

Hong Kong's reigning king of the gangster genre Johnnie To resisted entering the mainland market for a long time. When he finally did, he did not make too many concessions. As a matter of fact, this film, set and made in the mainland and financed by mainland money, served to widen the boundaries of what a crime drama can depict on mainland screens.

Not only are the drug-taking scenes realistically portrayed, but the heroic cop is more three-dimensional than most characters in this genre. The weakness, this time, lies in the antagonist, the Hong Kong drug-make who gets caught in the opening sequence. The director maintains his fast pacing and his signature violence is also intact, but the story leaves something to be desired in psychological depth.

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Picking (Apart) the bad apples

Hot ticket with popcorn