Saturday, September 4, 2010

An Outstanding Synopsis Of Exiled

By Lakeisha Dodson

If you love action flicks, but you're getting tired of all this whiz bang, shaky camera stuff where you can't tell what the heck is going on, Exiled may be the antidote you're looking for. This makes any worthwhile action movie downloads list because the action isn't so darned all over the place. Everything is clear and coherent, you can tell what's going on. You rarely see action this... Graceful.

We follow a gangster who betrayed his boss years ago, and his since gotten married and had a baby. The boss sends a couple of hitmen to take him out, while at the same time, two other former members of the gang show up to protect him. This is where the movie begins.

The five characters are all friends, and so, after a quick, and dazzling shootout, they come to a compromise. Where most gangster movies are fairly cold and impersonal when it comes to "whacking" people, this one is oddly sweet and sentimental, and the five decide to pull off a big score to support the wife and child of the lead character before settling any other business they might have together.

This movie comes from Johnnie To, the legendary Hong Kong director who came up around the same time as John Woo and Ringo Lam, in the Heroic Bloodshed era. Where those movies were driven by anger at the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, Exiled was made after the takeover, when it was shown that things hadn't changed quite as much as the Hong Kong people were expecting.

The dreamlike quality to the film is really something. Shootouts take place in slow motion, with action that takes only thirty seconds being expanded to several minutes. One incredible scene begins with a character throwing a Red Bull can into the air, and climaxes just as the empty can hits the floor, with bullets flying and people dying over the course of an incredible slow motion bullet ballet.

The story is fairly confusing. You have to simply watch it for the emotional drive of the characters, because the plot line is all over the place, however, this actually helps the movie's dream like quality. Even the director has said that he didn't know exactly what was going on while directing the film, and was hoping that he would figure it out in editing. When that didn't work out, he decided that, maybe someday, it'll make sense.

The Heroic Bloodshed era of Hong Kong action flicks was certainly an incredible time for film lovers. Hard Boiled and City on Fire defined the genre, being angry, explosive films, showing independent characters taking on the masses as a symbol of Hong Kong independence against Chinese communism. Lam and Woo went to Hollywood, and you could argue the qualities of their American films. Johnnie To stayed behind and turned the genre into something entirely different.

Exiled is a rare action film, and certainly one to see if you want something a little different than the usual shaky-cam shootout flick. It's really a refreshing breath of fresh air if you're sick and tired of not being able to tell who's shooting who and how the heck that guy got on the roof. Definitely a change of pace. - 40726

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