Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To is a master of high-octane action movies like “Election” and “Sparrow,” but he’s yet to get a breakthrough hit in the US. If any of his flicks deserves to do so, it’s “Drug War,” a rare To co-production with China.
The action is set on the mainland, mostly in the gritty industrial city of Jinhai. Drug-factory boss Timmy Choi (Louis Koo) faces the death penalty after being rounded up in an undercover operation, but makes a deal with a police captain Zhang (Sun Honglei) to rat out his pals in exchange for saving his life. (Manufacturing just 50 grams of meth in China will earn you a lethal injection.)
Cars go crunch, bullets fly, blood spurts, bodies splatter and an unbelievable amount of cocaine is snorted. The climactic shootout, which goes on for 15 minutes and has an astronomical body count, is a masterpiece of its kind. “Drug War” features a large cast of cops and gangsters, but the film’s center is the interaction between Timmy and Zhang. In one frantic scene, Zhang flips out after snorting coke, only to have his life saved by a fast-thinking Timmy.
The rules about on-screen violence are much tougher in China than in Hong Kong. How To got this past the censors is a mystery.