Breaking News (2004)

the leading man is my tpye

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Desperate to improve public perception after leaked footage shows them as weak and cowardly during a shootout, the Hong Kong police force agrees to have cameras strapped to their officers during a raid in this media satire from action director Johnnie To. The action is good, but it as a commentary on the role of media in society that the film works best. Kelly Chen is excellent as the constantly cool and collected young superintendent who approves the cameras, citing the need to put on "a great show" to win back the public. Nothing is quite on the level though with discussion of editing the footage before it is broadcast. The question also arises of whether the police see a greater need in nailing the criminals or making themselves simply look good. Things grow more complex as the criminals decide to broadcast their own videos online, and everything culminates in a memorable finale. The plot sometimes feels excessively padded out though; the basic story is slim and subplots like cooking a meal and a hostage trying to escape are distracting. None of the supporting characters are especially well developed either. Generally speaking though, the film is encapsulating throughout. Especially interesting is Chen's constant barking of orders from the comfort and safety of her headquarters. Is she putting her officers' lives on the line to serve and protect the public or to serve and protect the department's image?

Wow, is this a tense action-packed film. So much so, that I felt my heart racing throughout the film and I was on the edge of my seat! While I usually HATE action films, this one was something else--an intelligently made action film and one of the few in this genre that I can wholeheartedly recommend! Why it only has an IMDb score of 6.6 is completely beyond me.Unlike many action films, while there are a lot of explosions and gun fire, there also is an intelligent parallel plot that has to do with the news media and how the government will manage and manipulate the news to best meet their needs. This was brilliant but I was also very surprised, as this film was made in China--a country NOT known for its freedom of expression. Here, the filmmakers have a cynical attitude towards the cops and their occasionally dishonest attempts to manipulate the press. This parallel plot makes this movie far more than just mindless violence, but social commentary. A one-dimensional violent film is a complaint I have with many other action films--but not this one. The film begins with an undercover surveillance mission by the police. Two uniformed cops blunder into the operation and this results in a massive shootout--and it's obvious that the crooks are far better armed than the police. Eventually, most of the bad guys get free and take refuge in a high-rise apartment--where most of the film takes place.Despite a very simple plot idea, the film never lets up or becomes just an action feature. Again and again, I was amazed at the intelligence of the writing and intensity of the film without managing to be gratuitously bloody or violent. Yes, this certainly is a violent film, but despite all the shooting and explosions, the body count is amazingly low and it does not look quite as intensely violent some of the John Woo films. Excellent writing, direction and acting make this a must-see film for the genre.Watch this film...just be sure you DON'T watch it with children or those who are bothered by violent imagery.PS--I noticed that one reviewer complained about the bad subtitles. While the film I saw didn't have perfect subtitles (there were a few grammatical errors here and there), they were nothing like the ones they described. There were no white captions on white background and I don't recall words like "bandits" being used. I assume there must be another version out there, as I saw the film on the Sundance Channel and it wasn't bad at all. It is also possible I have seen so many badly captioned Asian films that this one looked pretty good to me--and believe me, there are MANY badly captioned Asian films.

Have I missed something here? From the title I thought this would be a film full of suspense and a story that would engage me but in my opinion it has nothing new to offer. I wonder what director To wanted to express through this film. There have been so many movies made on similar subjects. The only difference is that here To tries to portray the media as more involved in the plot but hardly anything stands out. The pace is very slow. The performances are miserable particularly that of Kelly Chen. Cinematography is alright. Even though the long shot in the beginning is somewhat impressive, it's nothing new. well, maybe for a movie like this, it is but that hardly make the experience of 'Breaking News' worthwhile. Anyway, I don't want to waste my time on commenting about this so I'll just end it by saying that I found it boring.

"Breaking News (Dai si gein)" is one of the most urban crime thrillers I've ever seen, using the density and verticality of a modern city as an intense frame for the fast-paced action.Hong Kong here seems to have visually become like the futuristic cities with satellite cameras of "Blade Runner" and "Code 46," with almost all the action taking place with 360 degree views of narrow streets, crowded plazas, dark hallways and elevator shafts. There's a door-to-door attack in a corridor that throws down the now classic scene from "Oldboy" as so much balletic nonsense compared to this gritty but very beautiful realism, with cinematography by Siu-keung Cheng. Director Johnny To grabs our attention in the enthralling opening scene of a shoot-out on a Hong Kong street. With almost no dialog we can figure out that this is a stake-out going horribly wrong. While the scene dizzyingly must have been shot on a cherry-picker zooming up and down and around as if we are on on external elevator or hanging from windows with a zoom telephoto lens, the angles are always important as the camera swoops and narrows and broadens our view from shooter to victim to shooter to victim as we swivel to where the shots are heard. I felt like I was in the antenna of the aliens in "War of the Worlds." The visuals are always directly related to the sounds, as edited by David M. Richardson.Though I could only infer some of the internal politics within the police bureaucracy with the significance of some using English names and others traditional Chinese names amidst the various competing levels of authority, some of whom spoke stilted English, it was easy enough to pick up on the techie criminalist statistician vs. the on the ground street cop (a terrific Nick Cheung, who is like a thinking cop's Bruce Willis), let alone the difficulties a woman cop (Kelly Chen) has on the force. Her need to prove herself and her modern approach is a driving theme in the film and gives it considerable difference from a more conventional crime drama. She may be a neophyte at being in charge, but she is not an idiot.There are parallel old school/new school, gangsters vs. assassins with different rules and technology that get caught up in the siege though I wasn't sure of the details of all their intersecting plots. The criminals are considerably more charismatic than all the cops except "Inspector Cheung", and have a sense of humor during an amusing hostage taking. The instant, real-time new and old media attention in what is as much a door-to-door war between cops and criminals as in "Black Hawk Down" becomes part of their battle plans. It is as violent as a Paul Schrader or Martin Scorcese film, but has the mordant cynicism and humor of Billy Wilder, as the violence mocks the continued blandishments we see from the government officials about the falling crime rate.While script writers Hing-Ka Chan and Tin-Shing Yip may have intended the high tech PR-controlling official to be a satire like "Wag the Dog" in having controlling the press be an essential component of controlling crime, it is just a very small step beyond the NYC Police Department techniques innovated under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. So it's a running gag that a kid with access to the Web can outwit their media manipulations. Survival seems to be based more on the results of the battle for public opinion.I wasn't sure if the Hong Kong police force always looks like storm troopers or if the production design was making a political point. Clearly there was some point to the hostages being surrounded by commercial symbols of Western capitalism and culture.The music by Ben Cheung and Chi Wing Chung supports the tension very effectively, including electronica and traditional instrumentation.Unfortunately, the film as distributed in theaters in the U.S. had the worst subtitles I have ever seen. Not only are they filled with spelling and quizzical grammatical errors, as well as frequently white on white, they seem to have been translated using an antique English dictionary. The most egregious distraction is constantly calling these bloody murderers the charming appellation of "bandits" -- how about thugs or gangsters or criminals or crooks or bad asses, and so forth. Why didn't a native English speaker look over these subtitles? At least the credits were mostly bi-lingual.