(Yes, Al, I'm pinching your gimmick.)
The Mission
What can I say, I like this Johnny To guy. But why the hell do I walk away from this movie thinking of Seven Samurai and Shakespeare? I mean the movie's promo poster alone harkens up archetypal imagery of the quintessentially cinematic "band of buddies", with the obvious nod to Resevoir Dogs. But you really have to throw this movie in to see how that is merely a nod to Tarrantino, everything else about the movie is more in the Kurosawa vein. The Mission is sort of a traditional samurai flick with modern props and modern sensibilities. You got this mob boss who's almost killed at the beginning, so he hires himself a bodyguard squad (that's about as motley a crew as any other in these types of "band of buddies" movies, no ground-breaking stuff in that department) to protect him for the rest of the movie. The Mission is not terribly action-packed, some scenes sorta drag a bit. And I mentioned Shakespeare because there's a subplot going on that you really have to pay attention to catch, but when you do you'll find the ending very remeniscent of Shakespearean endings. Hey this one only runs a little over 80 minutes long! Seriously, who doesn't have an hour to kill at some point? So if you're in the market for a good Hong Kong movie and considering jumping on my Johnny To bandwagon, in my book it goes Running Out of Time, then Fulltime Killer, and then this one.
Netflix "star" rating: 3
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