DRUG WAR (Johnnie To). 105 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (August 9). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNNN
Like most of Johnnie To’s recent films – among them Breaking News, Mad Detective and the two Election films – Drug War is a complex, institutional examination of the Chinese crime world from a specific perspective.
This one follows narcotics detective Zhang Lei (Sun Hong-lei of Mongul: The Rise Of Genghis Khan and The Warring States), an inventive, committed cop who sees a chance to infiltrate a massive cartel when mid-level manufacturer Tian Ming (Louis Koo, who co-starred in the Election films) pops up in hospital after a meth lab explosion.
Using Tian’s knowledge of dealers and cartel heads – who know him but not each other – Zhang inserts himself into their world as a mover of merchandise, with plans to set up a massive deal and catch the entire organization in the act.
There’s just one catch: Tian is a shifty bastard who’ll do almost anything to avoid the death sentence that comes with narcotics charges, and might also be setting Zhang up to save himself from the cartel’s wrath.
The director splits his focus between large-scale action sequences and more intimate clashes in which his two leads game one another. Drug War slots nicely into To’s filmography of violent, morally cloudy cops-and-robbers thrillers.
