Breaking News (2004)

Johnnie To has created a movie based on very simple background of police force attacking a desperate team of hit men captured on the run after a heist. Johnnie To is starting to really specialise in this genre which is nice as it is so refreshing to see it done outside the Hollywood narrow minded frame of completely OTT everything.Although this film does have a few hit issues. Like how many bullets can a guy take? How long can one scene stay strong (we're talking 7 minutes here folks!)? Can one opening scene be this long yet the action so extremely violent and snappy? Can audiences tolerate the glamour of the action yet cry for the broken family in the middle? Can the audience relate to the ultra threat of TV used by the killers for their own advantage as much as the cop's own advantage? This film is just a really fun outing of action; thrills, stunning cinematography with a very heavy extra cast in police uniform. This one has an added dose of family drama and TV station morality (ala Dog Day Afternoon). In this case it's more of the dangerous angle of a TV crew. The news has had such an epic presence in the years and the film just turns news on its head.Instead of the news becoming the standby it becomes the core of the film. It's a tale of struggle for power over the TV station in a big Hong Kong flat block.I for one am a bit tedius of Hollywood action and find this film inviting although you really should not take it to seriously with the shots fired and how many times should that guy be dead issue? Come on. Just look at the drivel which Hollywood makes us believe. They're so clueless they can only come up now with Asian remakes and comic idols from yesteryear.Brain De Palma could do a great rendition of this film as could Michael Mann. Lots of wide 35m shots would suit Mann well. Johnnie To and Michael Mann are clearly very favoursome of similar camera techniques which is fantastic. If you love 'Heat' and want to get in on more similar titles without the Hollywood bore then get more Johnnie To.A great film but please do not take body count hits seriously. It's a movie after all.

There aren't many films that even try to be innovative these days, so when one comes along that does, we ought to be willing to give it the benefit of any doubt. So yes, I think the film could have been just a little better polished; but it's a solid entry even as it is.In an era when crime thrillers seem to be all made for MTV - flashy, glossy, video-game-play - Johnnie To has delivered a tough, gritty, realistic study in obsession and professionalism. It is the police who, in differing ways, are very obsessed, and the criminals who are all professionals. And of course, it seems up to the media to spin the story the other way around, so 'decent citizens' can feel safe in their grimy little apartments like that of the cowardly 'father' who slips out on his own kids.I've read the review comparing this to "Natural Born Killers", but the visual innovations used here work on a completely different level. Oliver Stone references all kinds of media not as social comment (he uses them too frequently in many different contexts), but rather because he accepts that American culture today is its media. For Johnnie To, the issue runs a little deeper. His visuals are not so much satirical comment on media as they are attempts to raise the question, Just how do we define ourselves publicly in the age of electronic media? or does the media inevitably define us? Even the obsessed CID cop, who clearly has no interest in the media, becomes a TV prop at the end - only the criminals remain enigmas and thus retain a kind of humanity - despite the fact that they are cold-blooded killers through and through; being cold-blooded killers is part of their job, after all. When they're not committing crime, their probably just like the next-door neighbors (one has promised another to attend the funeral of his son after the job gets done). That's actually a pretty scary thought itself.This is the kind of film the Ray Liotta film "Narc" wanted to be, but sentimentally backed down from at all the most important moments. While Hong Kong's better directors can get awfully sentimental, they never let this force them to pull any punches. In the recent Tsui Hark film "Time and Tide" (which has plenty sentiment to spare) a cop and a crook suddenly find themselves pointing guns at each other's heads; the cop says "So now we're equal." The crook immediately shoots him in the head, and only then remarks "my gun kills, it doesn't talk." He then shoots the dead cop a half-dozen more times, just for the heck of it.To's film works on a similar level (and I like it more, since the criminals here are much more believable). It is very tense throughout and able to surprise in an era when most of us believe their are no surprises left to film. That gives it an added value, in my book. It kept me watching throughout, and I think it will do so for most viewers.

When a gang escapes from the police and some reporters get the whole incident on tape there is an outcry towards the competence of the police force. Looking for a chance to redeem themselves the police once again track down the gang in an apartment building and stage a real-TV type of event with hundreds of cameras to show the city of Hong Kong that they can do their job properly. Things get interesting when the crooks fire back with their own video of the incident and it is also revealed that there is not one gang in the building, but two.From the opening 7 or so minute scene that has no cuts and culminates in a shootout to the unpredictability of the rest of the movie this is film that really grabs your attention as if itself were a piece of "breaking news." Interesting is the fact that the "breaking news" almost breaks the reputation of the police. The ability of the media to get information literally everywhere in the blink of an eye is given an interesting commentary in that it can hurt the police as much as a raging shootout. And how can anyone, in such a hectic and tiresome line of work, be able to do anything correctly or according to some procedure if they have everyone else around them breathing down on their neck? It is possible when your success rate is high, but the moment you fail you are treated with a badgering as this film demonstrates.All in all, this is more a film about the media then it is about the police. The media are in the background throughout and the cops and crooks are the main characters, but it is the effect of an information hungry media that essentially is the driving force for the events in the film. The film's use of news-like footage is another thing - you want to know and see what is going to happen next, but it is that precise constant peering over the shoulder that hinders the police in doing their job. That makes for an interesting take on the crime-caper genre with the traditional drives like greed and corruption almost totally set aside. 8/10Not rated (yet at least), but contains R level violence.

Nice premise, nice looking but for myself it just doesn't completely fall into place for me.Probably the most noticeable aspect to "Breaking News" is the cinematography.. No doubt about it, the cinematography of Siu-keung Cheng & editing by David Richardson are first class, but it is also the source of my greatest frustration with this film. For mine the camera moves around too often, too quickly & will come to a holt in a sudden jolt. The opening scene in particular is just nauseating despite the obvious skill in putting it all together.Well worth checking out & I'm sure that we will see a Hollywood rip-off of this film some time in the next couple of years.