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| Louis Koo in Drug War |
Cast: Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Huang Yi, Wallace Chung, Gao Yunxiang, Li Guangjie, Guo Tao, Li Jing, Lo Hoi-pang, Eddie Cheung, Gordon Lam, Michelle Ye, Lam Suet. Screenplay: Wai Ka-Fai, Yau Nai-Hoi,
Ryker Chan, Yu Xi. Cinematography: Cheng Siu-Keung. Production design: Horace Ma. Film editing: Allen Leung, David M. Richardson. Music: Xavier Jamaux.
Even though we first see him frothing at the mouth and driving his car into a restaurant, and at the end of the film he's bargaining desperately for his life, Louis Koo makes an attractive if duplicitous figure at the center of Johnnie To's Drug War. The title says it all: Like our own war on drugs, the one in the film is a never-ending conflict full of compromises and fatal missteps. The first misstep the cops make in the movie is trusting Koo's Timmy Choi, whose meth lab has just exploded, and who desperately wants to avoid the death penalty China has imposed on fabricators of the drug. Choi promises to lead them into the heart of the country's drug world, and they go along with his plan. Initial success at gaining access to the workings of the drug business gives them hope, but Choi has only his survival in mind, and that precipitates a series of spectacular, if sometimes confusing, confrontations between cops and criminals, culminating in a spectacular shootout. Don't expect subtlety or sentiment from Drug War, and you'll be fine.
