Exiled

A Hong Kong film set in Macau. The year is 1998. The territory is about to pass from Portuguese rule to China. Four men come to a flat. Two to kill a man, two to protect him. The man inside is Wo. A former gunman; he left the work, married, and has a baby. They start waiting at the door. Wo arrives. Nobody fires. All five were once in the same crew. A shootout happens. The flat is wrecked, the furniture is holed, and in the end nobody dies. Then they all eat together. They tidy the flat, lay a table, and have a photograph taken. From there the film is a story of postponement. The order still stands and nobody carries it out. They look for a solution. One last job to leave money for Wo's family. The job goes wrong. The man they shoot turns out to be the wrong man. What the narrative is interested in is not crime but loyalty: its idea is that none of the five makes a plan and that every decision is left to a coin. The coin toss recurs. Where to go, who to shoot, all of it is left to the coin. The images are built like a western. Wide frames, men facing each other, long waits and wind. The gunfights lean on slow motion and choreography; Johnnie To builds them formally rather than realistically. One scene takes place in a hospital and starts over a tin can. The ending is entirely closed. The narrative gives nobody a way out. Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Roy Cheung, Nick Cheung, Simon Yam and Josie Ho are in the cast. Johnnie To directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hong Kong crime films and formal action. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a solid plot; the narrative is deliberately loose and the characters' motives are barely explained.