The opening scene garners instant sympathy from the audience! A brilliant tactic by the way! It's funny how the senseless violence angers and horrifies us but before long were ready to give a standing ovation when the bad guys finally get their comeuppance!

An extraordinary Revenge film that has a highly unusual twist that is played out masterfully and is what sets this film apart from the rest! While Johnnie To's film's are most remembered for being stylish gunplay ballet they also are celebrated for the many scenes devoted to brotherhood and loyalty! They also have some much needed humor scattered throughout the film for the sake of levity and exploiting the endearing qualities of its anti hero's!

The film…

The film that turned me on to Director Johnnie To!

There is a wicked twist that is revealed early in the film that is unlike anything you have ever witnessed before! Its what sets this film apart from the rest!

To's film is choreographed violence and mayhem! It's stylized gangster gunplay and blood spray ballet!

One of prevalent themes in many of To's films is brotherhood! This one is no different! The three Chinese gangsters (Anthony Wong, Ka Tung Lam, Suet Lam) form a brotherly bond with the man (Johnny Hallyday) whom hired them to seek revenge!

Johnny Hallyday is a French pop star in real life, looks like a real gangster with his weathered face and ice cold beady…

Lise and Jonnie's What A Wonderful World 2015

Action Friday has rolled around again, and it’s the final Friday of the 30 days challenge. Our grand plan of getting up really early and watching films before work just hasn’t panned out, so, it’s usually watching in the upstairs theatre while eating dinner. As we were closing in on the end of the work day, Lise asked me if we should give finishing Raid 2 another shot. Well, in the interceding time since we watched a few friends have exposed about the graphic violence. I’m not really keen to shovel in mouthfuls of curry to the sights of bones protruding from flesh, so, I asked my better half if there was…

"What does revenge mean when you've forgotten everything?" The answer, of course, is nothing, but by the point anyone realizes that, vengeance has become such a ravenous parasite that it transfers hosts to continue to live. Motion is a key aspect of all of To's films, but here it seems to embody not so much the constant shifts of space and fate so much as the termitic jumps of the drive for revenge among characters both villainous and heroic (for want of a better phrase). Also features some of To's most poetic action, especially in a lyrical shootout that stops and starts with the fading of moonlight behind clouds. It's a dance of engagement and cover in the open, between…

The role for the revenge-seeking French chef was originally attached to Alain Delon, who ended pulling off because of his dissatisfaction with the script. The result was To's second worthy Palme d'Or nomination. I could swear that if Delon had looked beyond the pages and research the director's aesthetics more and had accepted, this would have received full marks.

To finishes his unofficially established Macau trilogy involving family issues, fatalism, the volatility of loyalty within the triads and similar criminal organizations, and group dynamics with constantly-shaping friendship inclinations. Whereas Exiled had represented the pinnacle of his artistry featuring a stunning fusion between Leone's pacing and Woo's gun cataclysms, Vengeance is another bullet ballet impressionistically designed after the technical execution initiated…

After his son-in-law and grandchildren are murdered by triads Costello (Johnny Hallyday) promises his daughter who survived the hit badly injured to avenge the act. He seeks out hitmen to help him as he suffers from increasing memory loss which will complicate things for him...
After having watched VENGEANCE a second time I now am happy to say that I finally - after six years - found a new entry for my top 10 movies of all time. VENGEANCE for me is a perfect movie.
What elevates it from To's other movies is its emotional impact. Where To goes for strikingly looking action cinema in most of his crime movies VENGEANCE reflects the genre and digs deeper into themes like…

What is revenge?
-Costello

Director Johnnie To has taken brotherhood and male bonding between hitmen/gangsters and turned it into a genre of it's own. Although I never get tired of him revisiting these themes in his films, I think this might have been his last one in that tone. It's been four years though, so another one is probably just around the corner.

I like this film quite a bit because unlike his previous works, it throws in a "foreigner" into the mix. Costello, a French chef with a questionable past, is out for revenge against the men who murdered his son-in-law, grand-children and nearly killed his daughter. He is played by Johnny Hallyday, a man who is an icon…

30 countries challenge - film 21 - Hong Kong

I'm discovering Johnny To and lovin' it.

When he's being all stylized, man, can he do it. I don't think Vengeance is as great as Exiled, but if I'm being honest I don't think anything will beat that one.

In this one, though, you gotta love the references to Le Samourai, with Costello, a former hit-man from France who comes to avenge the death of his daughter's family. I loved how they explained that he got shot in the head (and we know who did that, don't we) but survived, left the business and started a restaurant. I wonder if he hired anyone to sing at the restaurant...The great twist is…