Exiled

Year:2006
Director:Johnnie To Kei-Fung
Cast:Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Nick Cheung Ka-Fai, Josie Ho Chiu-Yi, Lam Suet, Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Richie Ren, Eddie Cheung Siu-Fai, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Hui Siu-Hung, Ellen Chan Ar-Lun, Tam Ping-Man, Wong Wah-Ho
Description:
Exiled
is a hard film to review. Full of director Johnnie
To's pet themes, actors, and iconography, Exiled
could justifiably be called the wet dream of Milkyway
Film fanboys worldwide. Fans jonesing for the glory
days of The Mission and A Hero Never Dies
are sure to get off on the hard-boiled characters,
copious gunplay, and barely-contained homoeroticism
that To squeezes into this long-awaited gangland thriller.
Frankly, those fans are right to be so damn excited;
Exiled is topnotch Hong Kong Cinema, taking
much of what international fans define as "Hong
Kong Cinema" and packing it into a polished,
award-worthy package presented on a golden platter
with the initials J.T. carved into it. Because Exiled
packs so much audience love into its widescreen frame,
actually criticizing it can make a person feel downright
guilty. Unfortunately, that's what this review does
from time to time. We apologize in advance.
The big news on Exiled
is it reassembles the cast from To's 1999 classic,
The Mission. Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Roy
Cheung, and Lam Suet return playing characters who
resemble their respective parts from The Mission,
though early on we learn that they're clearly different
guys. In The Mission, the four guys shared
some acquaintances, but they largely met on their assignment;
in Exiled, they're revealed to be longtime
buddies. The four guys originally joined the triad
together along with Wo , who had to go
into hiding after a botched assassination attempt
on Boss Fay . Wo has since returned, setting
up residence in Macau along with his wife Jin , and their newborn son. But Fay still holds a
raging grudge, and dispatches Wo's old buddies Blaze
and Fat to do the deed.
Opposing the two are old friends Tai
and Cat . Wo once took the rap for Tai,
so Tai won't let Blaze off Wo. When the two pairs
of triad enforcers meet up, things are bound to get
tense. Right?
Maybe. The two pairs
of former triad pals great each other with warm familiarity,
plus the recognition that they'll be going against
each other to fulfill their jiang hu duty.
When Wo does show up, an impressive two-on-one gunfight
ensues, consisting of slow-motion gunplay, deafening
sound design, and more Mexican standoffs than a John
Woo movie. Then...it's time to eat! Nobody dies , and soon
the five former-and-now-current friends are reminiscing
about their old days over a fine home-cooked meal.

Joining them is a rattled
Jin, who can't grasp the "my enemy is my friend
is my enemy" paradox of these veteran triad types - but that's okay because she's a girl. Exiled
presents a man's world, and in this macho meeting
of brawny male types, men can be friends and enemies
simultaneously. Everyone's got a job to do and everyone
knows it; better to have a good time before getting
down to business and shooting each other. Food first,
fight later. But the group decides to grant Wo's final
wish , and opt
to delay their fighting even further. In between,
they smoke, drink, and display manly affection for
one another. Clearly, being a macho gangster type
rules.
Well, it does in a Johnnie
To movie, anyway. Exiled recalls the homoerotic
gangster brotherhood of A Hero Never Dies,
which featured Leon Lai and Lau Ching-Wan as dueling
hitmen who drink together with the knowledge that
the following day they'll be aiming for each other's
heads with semi-automatic weapons. Both guys had girlfriends,
but it was really the unspoken honor between men that
got their juices flowing. The Exiled guys are
the same, meaning they'll live and die for one another,
and can grasp their own, and each other's thinking
with almost telepathic understanding. These are honorable
guys who hon't hold a grudge if they're assigned to
kill one another because hey, gangland respect is
everything.
However, if that respect
isn't returned, then watch out. Eventually Boss Fay
rubs the foursome the wrong way, which is bad news
for anyone looking to escape a bullet in the head.
When circumstances place Blaze, Tai, Cat, and Fat
on the same side, they react like some sort of well-oiled
gunplay machine. Johnnie To uses stillness and calm
to offset his slow motion bullet opera set pieces.
He stages each forthcoming action sequence meticulously,
setting each player into position before sudden guns-blazing
chaos erupts. The sequences aren't as much choreographed
as they are unleashed, with rooms suddenly filling
with point blank, in-your-face bullet action. Frankly,
in most of the film's gunplay sequences its a wonder
that everyone isn't instantly killed.
But hey, that's movie magic.
In some scenes, nobody is hit, and in others, everybody
and their brother can take a trillion bullets without
dying instantly. Gunplay purists looking to poke holes
in Exiled would have an easy time here, as
many characters seem to go unscathed simply because
the script says it's not their time yet. Still, Exiled
works spectacularly for the masses, though that's
probably because it was built for a prefabricated
group of Johnnie To followers who know exactly what
they want - and what they want looks, smells, and
sounds just like Exiled. To delivers plenty
of familiar stuff here. Macho, no-nonsense leads?
Check. Quirky supporting characters? Check. Deadpan
absurdities? Check. Ultra-cool posturing by men in
awesome coats? Check. Emasculated comic relief? Check.
An over-the-top Simon Yam? Check. If Exiled
seems familiar that's because it is familiar.
It's the Greatest Hits of Johnnie To, delivered in
a single swell-looking and sounding movie that plays
up the iconic presence of its actors and its director
and uses them as cinema shorthand. Exiled isn't
really a sequel, but like a sequel, it leans heavily
on audience familiarity.
The negative is that the
macho coolness can become predictable. Like many a
Milkyway production, Exiled features a spare
narrative that efficiently dispenses all its information
in necessary doses. Given the iconic nature of the
characters and the few narrative options presented
to them, there are ultimately few surprises in the
choices they make. The film does have some fun with
the characters' aimlessness, having them resort to
flipping a coin when their plans break down, but even
then the film heads in an expected, and frequently
unrealistic direction. Reality is hard to come by
in Exiled because it's usually swept under
the rug; the motivations of some characters are simplistic
and obviously symbolic , and some things seem to happen
only for the coolness factor.
The Mission was so
successful because it actually developed while we
were watching it; the film drew the audience into
its own particular jiang hu, and brotherhood
was formed as the audience witnessed. In Exiled,
brotherhood is a given, and the audience understands
the film's particular world because, having seen To's
previous works, we're already supposed to. Johnnie
To really makes himself known here, imbuing characters
and situations with enough too-cool iconography and
obvious sentimentality that it becomes clear who the
real star of the film is: Johnnie To, himself. If
the director had inserted himself into one of the
many male-bonding sequences of the men hugging and
slapping each other on the back, it would oddly feel
appropriate.
In some ways, Exiled
feels like Johnnie To's 2046. Wong Kar-Wai
created 2046 after his international breakthrough
In the Mood for Love, and 2046 seemed
to play to his international audience by giving them
a mishmash of familiar Wong Kar-Wai actors and ideas.
In the end, 2046 was a gorgeous, immersive,
and predictable exercise in Wong Kar-Wai theme and
technique. Similarly, Johnnie To's international reputation
has reached its peak, with his films now playing Cannes,
Venice, and Toronto. This is opposed to his previous
venue: your DVD player and television set, with an
assist from either Universe Laser or Mei Ah Entertainment.
Exiled seems to pick and choose from the director's
previous work, mixing the lyrical sentimentality of
Throwdown, the over-the-top heroism of A
Hero Never Dies, the casual brotherhood of The
Mission, and even the barely-disguised politics
of Election 2 into one slick, audience-friendly
gangster film that entertains and enthralls, but rarely
challenges or surprises. Yeah, To is providing what
the audience wants, but at a certain point, Exiled's
willingness to please starts to feel like pandering.
However, the above is extreme
nitpicking, and if the biggest fault of Exiled
is simply that it isn't as good as The Mission,
then we're probably expecting too much. If one approaches
Exiled as a fan of Hong Kong Cinema and Johnnie
To in particular, then there's only one way to say
it: Exiled rocks. The gunplay is exciting,
the themes familiar and resonant, and the actors insanely
charismatic, with most of them adjusting their
performances to the film's particular cadence. Anthony
Wong and Nick Cheung underplay their roles well, and
Francis Ng displays a fine balance of explosive anger
and controlled emotion. Roy Cheung and Lam Suet turn
in charismatic support, as does Richie Ren, who's
so cool in his supporting role that he should get
his own movie. However, despite the strong presence
of the male actors, it may be Josie Ho who essays
the film's most pivotal character, and she does so
with a humanity that flies in the face of all the
macho posturing going on around her. The male characters
are mainly genre types, and don't seem to change as
the film progresses. Ultimately, it's Ho's character
and her infant son who drive the film to its blood-stained
close - which is somewhat of a departure from the
usually male-focused To.
Johnnie To also has fun mixing
his genres. In a fun stylistic and narrative choice,
Exiled is set in 1999 Macau, right before the
handover to China. The time is famed historically
for its lawlessness, and To plays that up by including
comically ineffectual cops, and gangsters who basically
flaunt their ownership of the region. Given the too-cool
gunfighters, their self-created and maintained code
of brotherhood, and the portrayal of Macau as a lawless
region ripe for the plucking, Exiled becomes
less a Hong Kong triad movie and more of an Asia-set
western, made complete by Guy Zerafa's strings and
guitar score, and motifs and set pieces that would
actually play better in an Old West setting. One character
even plays a harmonica while sitting next to a campfire.
If everyone carried six-shooters and wore cowboy hats
while tooling around Exiled's Macau, it might
feel only slightly out of place.
The above innovations aside,
Exiled does possess a "been there, done
that" feel, with the biggest quibble being that
Johnnie To is perhaps better than this. The excitement
in watching To's films throughout the late 90's and
early 2000's came from seeing him tweak genre conventions
and developing his own unique cinematic language,
and with Exiled the director doesn't move forward
as much as move sideways. This is especially noticeable
after the one-two punch of Election 1 and 2;
taken together, the two films arguably represent the
height of Johnnie To's filmmaking artistry. Exiled
really doesn't build on that, and sometimes seems
to be treading on too much familiar territory. If
someone walks into the film expecting a true leap
forward from Johnnie To, they may be disappointed.
A Greatest Hits package sure seems cool, but it still
amounts to something you've seen or heard before.
Still, Johnnie To deserves
to make movies that he likes, and it's clear from
the loving attention given to Exiled that the
director likes these kinds of movies just as much
as his fans do. Exiled is a technical knockout,
and should be remembered come awards time for cinematography,
score, art direction, and probably uber-coolness - if someone actually gave out an award for that. So
yeah, we probably shouldn't be complaining that much.
Johnnie To seems
to recycle for Exiled, but so what? Knocking
Exiled for pandering to a specific audience
is like throwing away a candy bar because it tastes
good; you know it's good and you know you'll like
it, so why not just eat it? With that in mind, we're
sorry that we spent time criticizing Exiled
at all, because really, we liked the movie just as
much as you did, or probably will. With Exiled,
Johnnie To has given his faithful fans a gift, complete
with bullet-ridded wrapping paper and bloodstained,
personally-addressed card. We'd be ungrateful bastards
if we didn't enjoy it.