In this 2009 Hong Kong action movie, an aging Frenchman (pop singer Johnny Hallyday) journeys to Macao to find the hit men who attacked his daughter and her family, and after a chance meeting with a trio of paid assassins, he enlists their help. Director Johnnie To (Election) has a poetic, tightly choreographed style that emphasizes complex rhythms and small details (not the least of which are the cragged lines of Hallyday’s face) and imbues the standard revenge drama with an almost Buddhist ephemerality: from the bursts of gunfire to the empty sky, nothing amounts to more than a ripple. That the father is losing his memory gives this theme an affecting echo in the narrative. In English and subtitled French, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
Vengeance
NR • 1 hour 48 min • 2009