Cannes. "Vengeance"

By David Hudson on 05/17/2009

[Updated through 5/26]

"We're far enough away from the golden age of Hong Kong John Woo action excess that a little nostalgia is warranted, and Johnnie To's 'Vengeance' [site] is meant to fondly recall every operatic slow-mo shoot-em-up of the era, though until that sinks in, it just looks ungainly," writes Alison Willmore here at IFC. In short: "To's better at deconstructing than deference."

"A revenge shoot-em-up which fires mostly blanks, Johnnie To's eagerly anticipated pairing with French actor and rocker Johnny Hallyday is unlikely to make it into the To Top Tens obsessively compiled by the Hong Kong director's loyal fanbase," writes Lee Marshall in Screen. "As always, the sensuality of To's visual style and soundscapes and the choreography of the film's bullet ballet provide reasons to watch, but the contrived plot, some wooden English dialogue and Hallyday's stilted perfomance derail proceedings well before the final showdown."

"Wai Ka-fai's script gets down to its bloody business in the opening minutes, as a Chinese man and his French wife (Sylvie Testud) are gunned down in their Macau home." Justin Chang in Variety: "The violence - accompanied by the smoky, stylized bloodspray that's become a To trademark - dispels the mood of domestic bliss with shocking suddenness. From there, 'Vengeance' descends into a darkly beautiful Triad gang underworld, where every confrontation must be preceded by much slo-mo brooding and sizing up of one's competition, often through sunglasses."

"With atmospheric locations in Hong Kong and Macau and To's signature set pieces of choreographed gunplay all accomplished with a bemused wink to his audience, 'Vengeance' can penetrate just about any market in the world," predicts the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt. "Popcorn and art certainly can co-exist as this movie amply demonstrates."

More from Jean-Michel Frodon in Cahiers du cinéma (and in French).

The Hollywood Reporter interviews To.

And Cannes has press conference video.

Update: "As François Costello in 'Vengeance,' Johnny Hallyday shares 'Le Samouraï's' Jeff Costello's last name, fedora, and lifestyle as nothing more than a hitman's daily tasks. Not just a man without a past, he's a man who lost his past, an amnesiac out to revenge his family's murder." David Phelps in The Auteurs' Notebook: "Where Jean-Pierre Melville's world is a marble checkerboard of chess pieces making their move, To's mechanisms of fate work in ballet: the slo-mo that makes even walking look like predetermined choreography, the barely (but perpetually) spinning camera that never sees them as fixed figures against the landscape, and most of all, To's Tati-like shifts in perspective that displace protagonists to the background and bring background characters to the front.... It's all dance."

Updates, 5/18: "With his ruined face and pale snake eyes Mr Hallyday holds the screen while Mr To shakes it up," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.

"To call the film cartoon-like would be to do a grave disservice to the majority of comic strips," writes Geoff Andrew in Time Out London. "That said, it's far from unenjoyable (though I'm not sure this kind of fluff really warrants a place in Cannes' main competition)."

Mike D'Angelo at the AV Club: "I was having a grand old time with the instantaneous masculine camaraderie and the portentous slow builds to various gun battles, but then To suddenly introduced an absurd brain injury that caused Hallyday to turn into Leonard Shelby from 'Memento,' taking Polaroids of his friends and enemies so that he'll know which are which when next he encounters them, and I was reminded of how empty To's movies always turn out to be underneath the elegant slo-mo camera moves. Still, it's never less than diverting, and sometimes hilarious."

Update, 5/21: James Rocchi for MSN: "I liked 'Vengeance' as much as the next guy who watched too many Hong Kong action movies in the 90s - the sight of Media Asia's logo and the subsequent shot-through-dishwater look of its films always makes me smile - but at the same time I have to wonder why a ham-and-egg-er action flick as disposable as 'Vengeance' is in competition while stronger films like 'Police, Adjective' are relegated to the Un Certain Regard selection."

Update, 5/26: A "masterpiece," declares Christoph Huber at La lectora provisoria: "Johnnie To's finest since 'Election.'"

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

[Photo: "Vengeance," Milky Way Image Company, 2009]

Tags: Cannes 2009, Johnnie To, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Testud, Vengeance