Reviews

No, really.

I've tracked down movies on their squib quality alone, and I've got to honestly say that Requital takes the cake.

But besides quarts of blood flying as every bullet successfully lands, there's a lot of other things going on in Requital as well. Too many things in my opinion. There's an excessive amount of characters, many that don't contribute much of anything but certainly win in confusing the viewer. The film could of lost a lot of these fodder types and tightened the entire affair up a bit. I think quite a few characters, especially Tung (I forget his real name) are just a little bit bland. Where are the little touches like Tony Leung Chiu Wai making paper cranes in Hard Boiled, or the snoopies in Fulltime Killers? Little things like that make or break movies, and quite a few characters in Requital aren't much more than cookie cutter seen it a thousand times before types.

The movie does have a lot going for it though. It's brutal, for starters. The shoot outs and fight scenes are sure to make you wince, as every time a bullet or punch connects, it usually sounds like someone's getting smashed with a hammer. Pretty visceral. And those squibs... My god... Hehehhee.

Very solid music throughout, and some beautiful scenery shots. It doesn't have dozens of great things going for it, but it also has very few things wrong with it. It rises above mediocrity for sure, but doesn't creep into classic territory either.

A very solid 7.5 out of 10. I did view this one on VCD, to note, so the quality was VHS'ish, maybe even a bit below it. But, VCD works for me, as this film is extremely rare, and that's the only way I found to view it, period. And, like I and the other reviewer said, the movie's confusing. Maybe further viewings would push the rating up a bit. I definitely can see that.

I'd heard good things going into this one, but it exceeded my expectations to say the least.

The movie just works. A great cast, for starters. Andy Lau steals the show, and is easily one of the most charismatic characters in cinema in recent years period. Kelly Lin is quietly beautiful and adds a lot to this movie, a down to earth aspect that many similar flicks are missing. Sorimachi is strong throughout, and Yam is used to great effect, more so as the movie rolls on.

It all looks great to boot, a little too good at times. The movie gets a little bit too glamorous for it's own good, too... Hollywood would be a good way to put it. A few unneeded CGI sequences marred it all just a little bit. I don't think the mask parts were needed either. Plenty of other ways to highlight Tok's love for pop culture, the Metal Slug reference for example... All it was was a few second verbal reference and it had me smiling.

Very cohesive as well. It's got direction and it maintains it the entire 100 plus minutes of the film, which is a nice departure from the disjointed mess I've seen so many films become.

The guns almost completely sound like they're being fired underwater as well. Quite dull. Just a little quibble.

An amazing movie on the whole though, it had me enthralled every step of the way, and I'd be content for the rest of my move going days if I could simply see a few films like this a year. Can't recommend it enough.

An extremely strong 8.5. Maybe even a 9. Go and see it now!

A Day Without Policeman, for sure.

The first third of this movie or so is absolute insanity. Not in an over the top good way, but in terms of absolute incoherence. Hard as I tried, I couldn't get more than a rudimentary grip on what was going on. Maybe the literally dozens of characters who we're supposed to magically know one thing or another about as they're paraded in and out of scenes with no real rhythm or reason had something to do with it. It kind of felt like one of those 70's chop socky Kung-Fu flicks where two movies were edited together to make one very confusing and usually crappy film.

Thankfully, the cinematic epileptic seizure ended eventually and the movie started to slowly but surly got itself together. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means great or even solid in my opinion, but it crawled out of the hole it was in.

Incoherent plot, villains with next to no motivation, sub-par acting, shoddy fight scenes, a few near comical scenes in a movie that's supposed to be the epitome of nihilism (A guy blocking bullets with two bricks in the middle of a huge firefight where innocent people are being killed by the dozen) and a "hero" who is too cowardly and incompetent. I can understand him being crippled by his fear... But come on... It gets asinine when the film makers literally rub your face into that fact constantly.

Speaking of incompetence, every "hero" in this film is incompetent. It was almost funny at times. They set elaborate death traps for the villains, and then innocent people are killed in them. Whoops! Didn't seem to be a very big deal either.

Ah, how did I forget this until now... The subtitles are the absolute worst I have ever seen. Peroid. Look at some of the other films I've reviewed and you'll see I'm no stranger to foreign films. They're almost all I watch, so it's not like I'm a stranger to bad subtitles... But this movie... My god. It literally looks like an eight year old did them. Sentences, a good majority of the time, are completely and totally incomprehensible. That coupled with the good sum of this movie being already very confusing, and you've got a cinematic peyote trip. I kid you not. You'll laugh out loud at some of the insane subtitles.

But, it wasn't all bad. It's far from the worst CAT III film out there. Had some scenes which mounted tension nicely, some good squibs, a very mean edge to the whole affair... It just could of been a whole lot more if there was some actual direction in the project.

That's my two cents. Spend them wisely! A 6, maybe a 6.5 out of 10 if I was feeling generous.

Stepping back and looking at the incredible amount of talent in this film, I can't help but be just a little bit disappointed, especially after numerous glowing reviews for the films here and on other sites. What drags the film down, in my opinion? Well, for starters, and the most blatant, the entire gay vendetta this movie seemed to carry. I'm not denouncing it, it was done in a humorous light for the most part and it wasn't a huge detraction, but still... I think it bogged the movie down, especially considering what prominent characters the clichéd gay guys are here. Even more so looking at what a contrast it is to the rest of this movie, which is very gritty and pretty serious. Extended scenes in gay bars with jokes about aids in the middle of a Cat III HK crime film? Not good, to say the least.

As mentioned in other reviews, this film rips off the Untouchables. Unmercifully. Constantly. It's not done in a bad way, so there's not much to complain about, but it's still there... Other original aspects of this film or no, there are still over a half dozen scenes directly pulled from the Untouchables.

The movie to boot just didn't seem to care much about being cohesive. Could of been a lot tighter. Though a good part of that might be to blame on the horrible, horrible subtitles. Very consistent misspelling of words, they ran off the screen basically making me miss good parts of entire sentences, and they were translated badly to begin with.

On the flip side, like I said earlier, this movie has talent up the friggin' wazoo and doesn't waste all of it. There's some solid fight scenes that are quite brutal... But on the whole I wasn't satisfied with them... I guess I felt there could of just been a little more, especially considering some of the martial arts talent involved.

And that's just about that. I enjoyed the movie, and I'm definitely not disappointed that I bought it, it's a solid entry into any fan of the genres collection... Just don't expect it to be a classic, I s'pose.

Oh, and one last quibble... The Bruce Lee fanatic. At one point, our crime fighting Bruce Lee lover even dresses up in the yellow Game of Death jumpsuit! His fight scenes (Hell, most of his scenes) have him making loud, high pitched Bruce Lee like sequels. Come on... Bruce Lee barely got away with that and the only reason he did it was because... Yup, you guessed it, he was Bruce Lee.

A 6.5 out of 10.

At the expense of sounding a bit cliché, it wasn't on par with the best of the genre (Such as John Woo's better films), and in my opinion it wasn't quite on par with a more closely related title, The Big Heat. Why? The constant music was nothing special, and at it's worst, slightly annoying.

There are a few somewhat wooden performances. Tony Leung Chiu Wai was far better in Hard Boiled. I don't think Tat-Chi Yau knew how to wring all of the potential Tony has out of him for this film, and it shows.

There was a certain dynamic that's almost a staple of the HK action/crime genre missing... The power of the weapons wasn't conveyed as I've seen it numerous films over the years. What I mean is that the guns didn't truly seem as powerful as they should of. The shots, underpowered, and it's a bit underwhelming when I'm used to even pistols coming across as these loud, near deafening, definitive things. Small thing but it ran through the entire film and I think it's worth mentioning.

Could of been about 20 minutes longer, with more characters being fleshed out a bit more. Film could of benefited a lot from that.

Bad subtitles. Quite a few misspelled words and I'm sure I missed the gist of multiple things because of the poor subs. Ah well.

Those are all relatively small issues I had with though, and on the flip side it's got a lot more positive things going for it. A great build-up of suspense at multiple times through the film, a pretty complex interweaving plot, two very interesting, I might dare say original action scenes which made me grin...

To boot, it was brutal and uncompromising. No humor (Though the random, unexplained vomiting kind of teetered on it) A few nice, brutal for this kind of film scenes that pleased the inner gore hound in me. The coloring throughout the film, as mentioned by others, was nice and added a nice dynamic to the film.

Hehhehehee, the movie also stars, without a doubt, the most unrelentingly sweaty character in the history of film. Tony Leung literally wipes his face down with a towel every few moments for almost the entire film. Hey, it's the little things that I get a kick out of. He kept washing his hands and what not too. I think he had some kind of sanitation issue.

Overall, a 7.5 out of 10 in my very personal opinion. Well worth hunting down and adding to your collection, as it's a very solid entry in a sadly still declining genre.