Weedy road by the side of the road, vehicles covered in smoke, a drug factory with thick smoke in the distance, a drug dealer with a burnt face and vomiting while running away, a car accident that was caught off guard, multiple missed calls on the phone screen , a vicious and evil confrontation between the police and the bandits is about to kick off.
This film can be regarded as a major improvement in the scale of Chinese-language films: the opening of the hidden drug inside the body and the disgusting shooting scenes; the bloody scene after the explosion; the "Mission Impossible 4"-style identity swap; The symptoms of narcotics; the operation process of the drug factory; the drug dealers burned the real red money to sacrifice; and the real brutal gunfight at the end and the first positive depiction of lethal injection. It can be said that in terms of scale, "Drug War" has created a lot of precedents for mainland movies, and has also opened many paths for many subsequent types of criminal reality themes.
The character descriptions are also very realistic. In order to track down drug dealers, the anti-narcotics police can only eat instant noodles and urinate in water bottles all day and night in the car. The first thing they do after changing shifts is to get out of the car and relieve themselves. In order to succeed undercover, they can only test drugs and help their accomplices to collect travel expenses. It's all dozens of dozens. There are also several tactical details that are also very attentive (for example, in the final shootout, the car was used as a cover, instead of hiding behind the door, but hiding behind the engine to block bullets). The accumulation of these details finally makes the film more mature. stairs.
Although the subject matter and story background of this film all take place in the mainland, in terms of lens language, character performances, actors, soundtrack and story tone, this is a very "Hong Kong" film. In the bones of the film is a proper To Qifeng-style Hong Kong film. Du Qifeng finally went the right way this time. He was good at scene scheduling, group standing, the formal sense of the confrontation between the police and the bandit, the absurd and desolate fate of the characters, and the various hints of the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong. What you see in the video can be seen in this film. Under the supervision of the strict censorship organs in the mainland, Du Sir has injected his unique style and ambition into this work. It can be said that this is the best way of living for Hong Kong films after entering the new century!
As for the villain Cai Tianming, it can be said without hesitation that he is the essence of the whole film. In the beginning, he cooperated with the police and confessed the process of drug dealing, as if he really wanted to make a guilt. Crying for his deceased wife in the middle, and not revealing the forces behind the drug dealers to the police seems to show that he is a kind and righteous person. It's a pity that the good impression this character gave us in the first half was completely shattered at the end.
First and foremost, this character is a thoroughly self-interested person. Interest-first people tend to be very savvy and have a big-picture view. At the beginning, in order to save his life, Cai Tianming must have really wanted to change his death sentence by committing crimes and meritorious deeds. Maybe he really knew that there was a secret channel in the factory, and that was the best chance for him to escape (of course, he didn't rule out the possibility that he really didn't know), so why choose the easy way? It can be seen that he was really fighting for a reprieve at the time. He caught Brother Haha, handed over the factory, and arrested a fake uncle. This credit was enough to win a reprieve. But the change in the situation was really unexpected: the big deaf and the small deaf escaped from the factory, and the SWAT police suffered heavy casualties. At this time, in exchange for the police's trust, the "Gang of Seven" behind Uncle Fake Biao had to be named (he didn't mention the seven people before) The help is not because of loyalty, but because this is one of his cards). At this time, it was impossible to ask for a reprieve, so the only way was to create chaos on the way to finally arrest the "Gang of Seven", so that he could escape. From Cai Tianming's final selection of the location of the fire at the primary school, tricking the truck to join, and driving away the school bus at a critical moment so that the police and criminals can face each other... In summary, Cai Tianming's purpose at the beginning was to survive. A person who will do anything to survive and abandon morality, and his strategizing and acting skills allow him to control the situation invisibly and control the fate of everyone.
However, the shortcomings of the film are also very obvious: the image of the characters is enough, but the character description is not enough. Whether it is a policeman or a drug dealer, the film has the characteristics of a single stereotype. Most of the police, represented by Sun Honglei, are the kind of people who do not care about their own lives in order to make the criminals subdue the law. Not much beyond that. If the film is compared to a piece of drawing paper, then only the image of Cai Tianming is outlined and colored, while most of the others have only a basic outline.
But about the ending, I have some different opinions: For most of the movie, the main storyline is basically the police arresting drug dealer Li Zhenbiao, and then the villain suddenly turned into the "Gang of Seven" like ordinary people. In the end, in order to escape the death penalty, Cai Tianming kept revealing information about drug dealers all over the country. From this moment, the dark line of the film revealed the tip of the iceberg: there are more drug dealers hiding all over the country, constantly selling drugs, maybe few people know of their existence, and they also have a drug sales network formed spontaneously, An airtight network. The drug dealers who died after being caught in the movie are not even a drop in the ocean. Compared with the successful escape of the simple villain, this is a more desperate ending.
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