SLIFF 2010 Review: VENGEANCE

For the first 90 minutes of Johnnie To’s VENGEANCE, it plays like a mad, straightforward bit
of virtuosity. There’s not much depth, but the surface layer, however shallow, is entertaining as
hell. Scene after scene flies by, alternating between action scenes and references to everything
from “Memento” to “Le Samourai” to “Macbeth,” and doing it all really well. Then, in the final
few minutes of the film’s climactic shootout, it gets quietly, subtly, very deep. It retains its furor
and energy, but once you start thinking about what’s really motivating the film’s hero by that
point, you realize that “Vengeance” had a lot more going on under the surface than it seemed.

Costello, the main character of the film, is played by French actor and singer Johnny Hollyday.
He’s in Hong Kong after the murder of his daughter and her family by anonymous intruders. For
the entire first half of the film, he plays everything close to his chest, even when his actions don’t
seem to make much sense. Why would a man as capable as Costello need to keep Polaroids of
people with their names written down to remember them? The way this is revealed, and what
happens after, is what sets “Vengeance” apart from other Hong Kong shoot-em-ups. These
scenes are some of the more thoughtful I’ve witnessed all year, and they culminate in an image
that will stick with me for a long time.

Hollyday gives an excellent performance, never playing his stoicism simply as a cool Charles
Bronson tough guy, but as a very necessary defense mechanism. He stares unblinking from under
the brim of his hat, calmly sizing up everybody he meets, including a trio of hired hitmen he
employs in his search for revenge. He first sees them in the hallway of a hotel after a job, and is
able to find them again in an ingenious sequence of scenes.

There are a few elements of the film that didn’t quite work; part of the story felt a little
underdeveloped, and a couple of scenes were a little too over the top for my taste. But these
don’t even register enough to complain about in comparison to everything about the film that
works. “Vengeance” is well worth seeing, and will probably be one of the best films you’ll see
all year.

VENGANCE will play during the 19th Annual Stella Artois St. Louis International Film Festival on Wednesday, November 17th at 7:00 pm at the Hi-Pointe Theatre.