Arts and Culture

Movie review : 'Breaking News' (Dai Si Gein)

Director: Johnny To
Cast: Kelly Chen, Nick Cheung, Siu-Fai Cheung, Simon Yam
Year: 2004
Language: Cantonese/Mandarin
Country: HK

Synopsis

A group of armed criminals go on the run after a shoot-out with CID officers. The police and CID then find themselves competing with each other to apprehend the criminals whilst at the same time waging a public relations war with the media that watches their every move. The criminals are eventually pinned down in a cramped tower block, setting the scene for an unconventional stand-off...

Review

It's not every day you get a chance to go to the cinema in London and catch a Johnny To-directed movie starring Kelly Chen and Simon Yam... but luckily for us, the Firecracker Showcase was around and gave us the chance to do just that. 'Firecracker' is a special festival of the best in contemporary Asian cinema and offers a rare opportunity to see some great movies on the big screen (as opposed to watching them on VCD or DVD at home).

So what was the film like? 'Breaking News' begins with a dazzling opening sequence - a 7 minute-long continuous shot that depicts an entire C.I.D police raid and shoot out in one uninterrupted take with no cuts. If you can excuse the bizarre inaccuracy of the weapons used in the gun fight (hundreds of shots are fired yet hardly anyone gets hit) it has to go down as a classic piece of action cinema. The director doesn't use this trick once but twice: Another shootout towards the end of the movie is also depicted in one continuous shot... and it takes place on a moving bus!

After the action packed opening 'Breaking News' darts off in many directions, switching between police procedural drama, to office romance, to cheeky contemporary satire and back to all-out, guns-blazing action. The main theme of the story seems to be the effect that blanket media coverage has on police work although the film does not drive home any particular point. Instead it chooses to employ modern technology to add new twists to the standard cops-and-robbers formula. For example, what appears to be a standard cinematic 'hostage situation' is turned on its head with the aid of webcams, camera-phones and the ever-present media.

Like many Hong Kong films there is a slight lack of realism in the film which is more interested in setting up a complex 'cat and mouse' scenario inside a very well-chosen location - perhaps the most cramped tower block in Hong Kong. Kelly Chen seems slightly out of place as a cold, hard, media-savvy police officer and some of the police manoeuvres seemed a little unbelievable but overall it was an entertaining movie and a great chance to sample Hong Kong cinema in a cinema.

There is not much meaning to derive from 'Breaking News' other than the fact that today's Hong Kong is well and truly in the media age. However it is an action packed story with many original touches, told with plenty of humour and some great camerawork.

3 out of 5

Stephen Pang

The BCS arranged a group to see this film as part of the Firecracker Showcase

More reviews...

• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress 4 out of 5
• Breaking News 3 out of 5
• BCS visit to 'Encounters' at the V&A museum, November '04
• Not One Less 5 out of 5
• Better Luck Tomorrow at the Firecracker Film Festival
• In The Mood For Love 5 out of 5
  
• Eat Drink Man Woman 5 out of 5
  
• The Road Home 4 out of 5
  
• Yellow Earth 3 out of 5
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