"What does revenge mean when you've forgotten everything?"
Vengeance begins with a brutal hit on a family. A man and his two children are shot dead with the wife critically injured. The woman's father, Costello, arrives from Paris to Macau in light of the shocking news. Hanging on life support the woman is able to relay one simple message to her father, "Avenge me." And thus begins a rather fantastic blend of revenge drama with Hong Kong style action and flare. Mix in a little bit of Memento and a remarkable visual style and you get Vengeance.
I mention Memento because Costello's memory is fading, so it is important that he avenge his daughter's family before he forgets not just who he must kill but also why. A stranger to Macau, he enlists the help of a trio of hit men who he happens to cross paths with. He takes a picture of his allies to remind him of who they are. The four men bond together. There is a language barrier between them. He is French and they are Chinese and must communicate to each other in broken English, but there is an unspoken understanding between them. They know what must be done, they feel his pain.
This is a really great film, unique and stylish, thrilling and at times moving. Director Johnnie To has been around Hong Kong cinema for over two decades and I'm sure I've seen some of his movies as a kid, but Vengeance is the first I've seen as an adult. If this film is any indication of his talents then I'll gladly dig a little deeper into his filmography.
There are a couple really great scenes. One is so beautifully choreographed that if you stopped to think for a second you'd realize how preposterous the set up is, but you don't really care because it looks so damn cool. In it, the trio of hit men are surrounded in a open junkyard by their enemies. In a widescreen shot you can see the bad guys circling in on their location crouching behind big bundles of scraps rolling forward like gigantic dice. The wind is the equivalent of a category 3 hurricane as debris and paper fly around everywhere. It is really quite the scene.
Another visually compelling shot is Costello lost in streets of Hong Kong in the rain. He holds up his polaroids of his friends trying to match the faces in the pictures with anyone on the street. The combination of the neon signs with the gloomy rain makes for such an interesting look.
I really liked Vengeance so a special thanks to my friend Zach for recommending it to me, even though he may or may not read this blog!
Grade: A
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