REVIEW : Sicario (2015)

Sicario hits you from the get-go: fast-paced, tensed and thrilling. It's one of those films where you're constantly made to think that the stakes are unbelievably high, and that every life, good or bad, has value and means something. You'd find yourself flinching at every death on screen.

The female lead in this film, FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) serves as the audience's substitute as we mostly see the world in her point of view. After a raid, she is recruited into a team that's aimed to bring the man behind the chaos to justice. Or at least, whatever justice is in that grey area.

Both the audience and Kate are never quite in the know of what's happening, everything's very much hush-hush. Joining her are Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who claims he is part of the DoD but Kate suspects otherwise, and there's Alejandro (Benicio del Toro), who is even more mysterious and enigmatic.

Later, as Kate will soon discover, basically everything for her will be going to shit.

Kate : Really doesn't know what she's signing up for.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve who is known for his dark films such as Polytechinue and Prisoners, Sicario is a no-frills film that almost plays out like a quasi-documentary. It exposes the horrors in the American War on Drugs, and the not-quite legal measures in covert operations that are taken to win this war. The script, written by newcomer Taylor Sheridan , is sharp and concise. But props really must be given to the cinematographer, Roger Deakins. There are multiple aerial shots of the barren deserts that can only be described as breathtaking. The most impressive scene from the entire film was of the four black SUVs, travelling in a single file as the weave through Mexican traffic. What happens next is really the most nail-biting segment in the entire film.

Alejandro ; Man of few words with a mysterious past. Every time he appears, he commands the screen.

There's a saying in Chinese: flowers can only be beautiful to the eyes with green foliage in the background as support; that's what you can say about composer Johann Johannsson's score. It's in the background, and you never really do pay attention to it, there's nothing much that stands out. But if not for the score, Sicario would have been lacking; with it, the movie transforms into what it is, a thriller that's constantly keeping you at the edge of your seats.

I smell multiple awards in the works.

Matt ; General jackass overall. Effective, gets the job done, but still a jackass.

Other trivial musings : I honestly think that they did a perfect job in casting the doe-eyed Emily Blunt, who pulls off Kate Macer's high-strung, but constantly confused look perfectly.

 TL;DR : We see how the War on Drugs is fought, and we see how sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

I rate it : 9/10 stars

Should you watch it? Yes, but be warned that Sicario might not appeal to the faint-hearted.

SICARIO (2015)

Genre : Crime Thriller

Runtime : 120 mins

Director : Denis Villeneuve

Cast : Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya

---

Like TWC's Facebook and follow my Twitter to keep up with updates. 

REVIEW : Helios - 赤道 (2015)

The one thing that sets Helios apart from other Hong Kong action movies is how big it is. Spanning half of northeast Asia and boasting an impressive multinational cast, director duo Longman Leung and Sunny Luk return from their 2012 film Cold War with something extremely big and incredibly loud. Helios is nothing if not ambitious; some might even argue it’s overambitious.

The Koreans have built he world’s smallest nuclear weapon in the form of DC8 but all hell breaks loose when it is stolen be the infamous criminal, Helios (Chang Chen 张震) and his sidekick/assistant who is never given a name (Janice Man 文咏珊). Ji Jin-hee and Choi Si-won enters the game as two agents from South Korea tasked to retrieve the WMD that has been brought to Hong Kong. The two are joined by Counter Terrorism Response Unit inspectors Lee Yin-ming (Nick Cheung 张家辉) and Fan Ka-ming (Shawn Yue 余文乐) to track down and recover what was stolen. Physics professor Siu Chi-yan (Jacky Cheung 张学友) joins the ever growing team as a consultant.

And then there are also Chinese official Song An (Wang Xueqi 王学圻) and his assistant Yuan Xiaowen (Feng Wenjuan 冯文娟) who play the part of Great China, the wise big brother that swoops in and cleans the mess up, all with the greater good in their thoughts, even if their methods might not be everyone's favourite.

I hope I haven't lost you so far.

Eye-candies from Korea cast for very obvious reasons.

It’s hard to say who the main focus in this movie is since there are so many characters to juggle in the span of around two hours; it’s easy to say that the producers of this film have obviously bitten off much more than they could chew. The cast is huge with each name carrying a heavy bit of weight, filming locations are spread out in numerous countries, more twists and turns and plot points were added as the story progressed. The plot gets tangled up and it becomes convoluted very fast, and it doesn't help that there is almost zero character development since everyone's fighting for screen time. The big names are useless here as everyone plays stock characters with stock personalities that are as two-dimensional as characters get. You can easily replace the two Cheungs with someone of lighter credentials and it probably wouldn't change much.

Except losing the fame and attraction that comes with the big names.

Highly replaceable in terms of acting; not so much in terms of fame and popularity.

I’m not going to lie: I personally enjoyed Helios, even if it is loud and flashy. I think this is largely due to the well-choreographed fight scenes by Chin Ka-lok, especially the one between Nick Cheung and Janice Man. Girl can seriously kick some ass while Cheung fights back with the skills learned from his 2013 MMA film Unbeatable. The action sequences in the second half of the film is riveting once you learn to ignore and forgive the incredulity of everything—such as robbing a nuclear plant and smuggling the weapon into Hong Kong by commercial flight. Fighting in Helios, whether it be with fists or with guns, is rapid, it's brutal, and it can get very gory for a Hong Kong action movie.

For someone with no name and little to no dialogue, Janice Man(Left) is the perfect kick-ass sexy-hot babe who is not to be trifled with.

There's a little bit of everything in this movie: robbery, nuclear warfare, epic gunfights, political bickering, and the likes. Of course, no Hong Kong crime action film will be complete without some treachery, But I won't spoil that bit for you.

Helios probably won't win any points in the writing department, but it is highly entertaining. I will probably be anticipating the sequel promised by how the ending is set-up . As said in the epilogue, Helios is only the beginning.

As they say in Chinese: better to offend a villain than a woman. Things get even worse when that person is both.

I rate it : 8/10 stars

THE GOOD : It's pretty high on the entertainment factor; fight scenes are sleek and well-choreographed

THE BAD : Zero character development; things get real complicated real quick, quite unnecessarily might I add.

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...fancy a good, new Hong Kong film of the genre.
• ...want to watch Nick Cheung gets his ass kicked by a very pretty (read:hot) girl.
• ...are not going into JUST for the Korean actors -coughSiwoncough- Things will not end well for you emotionally. 

HELIOS - 赤道  (2015)

Genre : Action Crime

Runtime : 118 mins

Director : Longman Leung, Sunny Luk

Cast : Jacky Cheung, Nick Cheung, Choi Si-won, Ji Jin-hee et al.