AFTER reduced to a certain filmmaking restraint in the back-to-back gangster epic ELECTION (2005) and ELECTION 2 (2006), director Johnnie To made a much-needed comeback to his usual kinetic entertainment-style that sees him into a more playful mode. The result is EXILED To's most entertaining film ever made since BREAKING NEWS (2004). Promoted as a quasi-sequel of sorts to To's much-acclaimed THE MISSION (1999) in which both film here shared the same cast and similar tone but whatever it intends to be, EXILED and THE MISSION are actually two different films and shared no connection at all.
The film opens in the usual To's minimalist fashion: A pair of trenchcoat-wearing men, Blaze (Anthony Wong) and Fat (Lam Suet) are assigned by their boss, Boss Fay (Simon Yam) to eliminate Wo (Nick Cheung) who has tried to take out a gangland boss a few years ago and failed. After years in exile, he braved himself to return to his native Macau with his wife, Jin (Josie Ho) and their recently newborn child. But now, Blaze and Fat are already in front of the apartment building, knocking on the door. When Jin opens the door, she refuses to acknowledge anyone by the name of Woo. But they refused to give up and end up waiting instead. Not long after, another pair of trenchcoat-wearing men appeared in the form of Tai (Francis Ng) and Cat (Roy Cheung), happened to turn up looking for Wo as well and ends up the same response. Like Blaze and Fat, they also wait. Later a cop named Sergeant Shan (Hui Siu-Hung) shows up and immediately freaked out when he notices two pair of armed killers. Apparently, he is a corrupted cop who has a connection with Boss Fay and he has only a few more hours left before his retirement pension, so he leaves them alone and pretends nothing is happened. Finally, Wo shows up and parked his lorry, which filled with lots of furniture, at the roadside. With Fat and Cat are ordered to wait outside, Blaze and Tai followed Wo into his apartment and fiery confrontation ensues in a Mexican standoff-style. They whipped out their guns and shoot at each other, until they forced to stop when they heard Wo's baby is crying and needs to be feed. So Wo suggested they should talk instead. In a quirky twist of style, they help each other to move all the furniture from Wo's lorry and sets up the entire apartment, cook food, having fun chit-chat and take photo together as memory. From here, viewers are learned that they are actually childhood buddies. But there's more to the plot than it's about killing Wo: Blaze and his friends get themselves involved with another job where they meet up a hotel owner named Jeff (Eddie Cheng Siu-Fai), specifically about hijacking a ton of gold; Boss Fay wants his partner, Uncle Fortune (Tam Ping-Man) to wipe off his rival, Boss Keung (Lam Ka-Tung) that sees them in a bloody shootout at a Yat Chung restaurant, where Blaze and his friends as well as Wo are also there. And this is where the complication begins: Blaze and his friends end up protecting Wo instead, resulting the very angry Boss Fay to wipe them out completely.
From the visually-engaging opening scene that recalled the carefully-mounted opening shootout scene of Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969), to a subsequent bloody Mexican-standoff scene (as in the Yat Chung restaurant and the underground clinic sequence) and right down to Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH-style climatic shootout finale at Jeff's hotel where Tai shuts the door and starts kicking an empty soda can up in the air, passing it to each four of his friends before they start a chaotic shooting spree against Boss Fay and his men, To has definitely delivered all those slow-motion, blood-splattered entertainment with such intoxicating result it's such a poetry.
The cast is likewise superb, laced with dark humor and strong, yet involving characters that speak dialogue only when necessary.
EXILED is originally rated CAT III because of the triad handshake but the studio demanded it to trim it instead to obtain IIB.