Synopsis
Leaving it all behind...
A friendship is formed between an ex-gangster, and two groups of hitmen - those who want to protect him and those who were sent to kill him.
Exiled
2006 ‘放‧逐’ Directed by Johnnie To
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Alternative Titles
Fong juk, 放逐
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Westerns Crime, drugs and gangsters High speed and special ops violence, action, guns, cops or killing western, outlaw, cowboy, shootout or gunfight martial arts, kung fu, choreography, cool or action-packed action, explosives, exciting, action-packed or villain gangster, crime, criminal, violence or ruthless Show All…
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“no need to hide your gun. everyone carries a piece these days.”
going in my favorite films list and probably every conversation i have regarding asian cinema!
johnnie to, sparks a blaze to this 2006 triad flick, sporting highly stylized visuals and invigorating the bloody ‘bros for life’ genre. a fantastic tribute to spaghetti westerns while finessing a layer of vulnerability, exiled is the ballistic tale of a quad of gangsters united by common responsibility—only to be pawned off into a territorial war between mob bosses from hong kong and macau.
sick framing, a sweet score, chubby retiring detectives, mexican shootouts, homoerotic brotherhood, shady surgeons, redemptive prostitutes, a momma with a pistol & baby on her hip, hundreds of rounds fired, government heists and simon yam in his tighty-blackies… what else could you possibly ask for?
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The Stand By Me of triad films. I'm glad I watched The Mission within the last month, because it really gave Exiled a "we're getting the old band back together" feel. I love watching these guys together, and clearly they love working together (and with To). So much is communicated in their glances and gestures to one another. While seemingly every major action director was still dragging out Matrix "bullet time" and stale 90s Hong Kong tricks, To is constantly experimenting and innovating with how to stage and film a shootout. Here billowing curtains, tarps, and misty blood add kineticism to the typically tense and tight fixed location gun play. It's extremely exciting, quirky, and funny, as I've come to expect from To, but unlike any of his other movies I've seen, I found this one genuinely moving (as opposed to just rousing, if that makes sense). Maybe that's just the cold medicine talking, I don't know.
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the most profound work of hong kong's greatest director: a melancholic capstone to a hundred years of both western and eastern cinematic traditions, the crossfire of cowboys and hitmen, gangsters and bastards, classical gun-opera and revisionist carnage. blood-brothers huddled together in the murky darkness, posing for one last faded picture, their broken bodies made immortal through art; exiled is one of the few perfect films.
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When words mean a lot, but the look in their eyes in ethereal moments of silence mean that much more. Friendship as sacred duty; unfortunately sullied once, but never again. Honour among killers in a world where it's steadily becoming a relic of the past; nothing more than an archaic word whose mere definition would seem alien to any other thug whose entire existence is defined by transactional relationships.
Defying fate until the madman in your past catches up to you and threatens to destroy your present without a moment's notice. But here stand your friends, looking to save your family at all costs even if it kills them. Renegades aiming not for glory but to help each other against…
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an intimate ode to blood-soaked brotherhood, johnnie to's spiritual sequel to his masterpiece the mission channels his existential melancholia into a florid elegy for camaraderie and the emotional weight of violence. the mission itself was stylized as an impish, intelligent purification of the heroic bloodshed genre, stripping every histrionic explosion of violence down into an ice-cold standoff between the professional respect & kinship of killers and the ritualistic expectations of their underworld society. exiled unravels every bit of lighthearted gloss from its predecessor, charting the complete tragic and inevitable destruction of a hitman fellowship that would never be able to realistically achieve their private dreams of normalcy and peace.
to's air-tight framing and blocking is overclocked here to the point of…
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I don’t even know what more is there to say about this it’s simply one of the coolest movies ever made with some of the best shootouts put to celluloid. So I’ll say this, plenty others have already pointed out the unique use of squibs in this and I completely agree. Every burst of blood looks like a literal puff of thick, red smoke that’s somehow not computer generated but all done practically. It’s the coolest looking thing and makes the already graceful violence borderline poetic. Never seen it done like that before or since. Also, just like in The Mission, absolutely love the chemistry and most importantly, the mischief between these characters here. I wish western filmmakers, fucking champions…
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Well hello Mister To.
I thought I already knew all the masters of Hong Kong; those who had taken the next step beyond the flying kicks and 64 hands, but apparently I didn’t. I’m not, by the way, taking a shot at the poetry of the martial arts. It’s just something that I never really connected with.
I can see why Quentin admires Johnnie To. They are brothers from different mothers. I can see one of my favourite directors, Wong Kar-wai, giving a sideways look, too. Johnnie To has an understanding of characters; he has an innate sense of plotting, he has heart, and he has style in spades.
Watching this film out of the blue, right in the middle…
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Fatum exitium, A Chorus of Soldiers in 9mm.
A canticle of ammunition colliding with flesh. Blood hissing from commingled corpses like a rearing dendroaspis.
A violent sonata. Spirits stripped away from the bodies they once inhabited without a second thought. No chances to explain—no reasoning with or understandings to come to.
Destiny in accordance with self-decimation and the devastation of an impasse that has left each of them chewed up and spit out; mangled and masticated at death’s doorstep, with nothing to lose but the honor they sought to recapture.
Friendship in Fatalism.
A fable of four weary men who know—from the beginning, before vengeful redemption even had time to materialize as a reaction to an imprudent brotherly betrayal and a…
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74
Brotherhood as structure. Precisely mannered by Johnnie To, Exiled opens up the space for tension between comradery and business - the pleasures and pressures of masculine codes. The shoot-outs glow with puffy blood clouds and intimate glances. Has one of the greatest opening scenes.
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"What's the value of a ton of gold?"
Johnnie To continues to be the most underrated bro director of the 21st century; I could watch these boys fucks around for another 2 hours and still won't get bored, and that last shootout is an all-timer. -
Rewatching this heroic bloodshed movie because it was director Johnnie To's birthday yesterday.
Exiled certainly is entertaining, but I do find it mediocre compared to some of To's other movies. The style is there, it does however run a bit low on heart. The camaraderie between the characters just feels forced. I also lost track of what was going on at times. This definitely isn't To's strongest movie from a narrative standpoint.
It does look extremely dope though and the action is absolutely spectacular.
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One of the coolest movies I've ever seen.
A town with countless hitmen, one prostitute, one back alley doctor, two cops, and not a single civilian. The whole thing has a very spaghetti western feel to it, so much so that if they were to remake this as a western, and by god I hope they don't, they wouldn't have to change a single thing.
Besides, and this is what separates this movie from anything else in the genre: No one stages a scene and moves the camera like Johnnie motherfucking To.
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