Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

It's pretty much obligatory to begin any discussion of Johnnie To's "Daai si gin" (Breaking News, 2004) with an expression of admiration for the extraordinarily difficult opening take running more than seven minutes in which the camera goes up and down and all around, inside and outside a seedy apartment building to a shoot-out in the streets of Hong Kong. With some brief speedups, the continuity of the take is not as obtrusive as some of the famed long takes in motion of Max Ophuls (Le Plaisir et al.) or those in "Soy Cuba" and the final out, around, and back in one at the end of Antonioni's "The Passenger." More recent bravura ones are included in Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men."

I had to watch it again to be sure that the chase on foot to try to intercept the getaway car at the start of "Breaking News" did not continue without cuts. The second time through, even more than the first, I noticed how very many bullets were fired. It is amazing to me that so many trained gunmen, police and criminals, in both Hollywood and Hong Kong crime films miss so very, very many shots — all the more so when movie gunslingers (in westerns as well as in police procedurals and gangster movies) sometimes shoot two pistols at the same time. I'll grant that when Nick Cheung is firing pistols with both hands in "Breaking News" he looks the direction he is shooting as he alternates hands.

I may be making it sound as if "Breaking News" is one of the bang-bang-bang Hong Kong action movies. A lot of bullets are expended in the shoot-outs at the start and the end, supplemented by a lot of grenades. What makes "Breaking News" stand out from other Hong Kong action movies is the cat-and-mouse game of manipulating the media played by Police Commissioner Rebecca Fong (Hong Kong pop singing star Kelly Chen) and a charismatic doomed gangster in the Alain Delon/"Plata Quemada" tradition, Yue (Richie Ren).

Their photo-ops for the press are interrupted/undercut by the ruthless cop who breaks rules in his unstoppable crusade against criminals, Inspector Cheung (Nick Cheung). As in the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy that Martin Scorsese remade with American film stars as "The Departed," cellphone technology is central to the m.o. of the Mainlander criminal and the Hong Kong policewoman. She stages some shows for the media and he streams live videos that undercut the story she is trying to tell.

The attempts to manipulate the news interest me more than outcome of the gun battles. The family (a father and two sons played by Lam Suet  and his two real-life sons) who become hostages are entertaining. The young boy is the computer whiz but very adamant about not helping criminals.

As in Spike Lee's (later) "Inside Man," a fascination if not quite a bond develops between the criminal mastermind and the commander of the police operations (Lee interjected a very self-confident woman, too, in the person of fixer Jodie Foster, though the commander of the operation in the police trailer in "Inside Man" was played by Denzel Washington). Inspector Cheung tramples on this, too, in ways a reviewer cannot mention.

In addition to the satire of the media being played, I think there is a satire of sexism in the dreamy fawning to Commissioner Fong's beauty (though she is in more severe power drag than Jodie Foster would be in "Inside Man").

Yue is not as ruthless (that is to say willing a killer) as Andy Lau in various Hong Kong movies (including Infernal Affairs).

Watching "Breaking News" made me realize the debt Spike Lee's "Inside Man" owed to Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon." A standoff between cops and a charismatic criminal is more obviously a link between "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Breaking News," and both probably influenced "Inside Man."

Both director To and editor David M. Richardson won Golden Horse Awards in Taipei for their work on "Breaking News." Somehow, Bun Yuen did not win for best action choreography! Lu Chuan's "Kekexili" (Mountain Patrol) won the Golden Horse for best picture; "Xin jing cha gu shi"  (New Police Story) picked up the action choreography one (and Andy Lau best actor for "Infernal Affairs 3").

Very good satire for an action director, though To is no Preston Sturges. And for doomed thieves in an apartment, "Plata Quemada" (Burnt Money) remains my favorite, but To is a very inventive comic and action director.


©2009, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age