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RATING:   
SINGAPORE : Johnnie To's latest offering, "Vengeance", stars French rock 'n' roll icon Johnny Hallyday - a good enough reason to watch the movie - and Anthony Wong, Lam Ka Tung and Lam Suet as a bunch of typically loyal, good-at-heart gangsters. And Simon Yam as a hateable baddie.
A French restaurateur (Hallyday) comes to Macau and enlists the help of a team of assassins to avenge the murder of his daughter's husband and children. He also has a bullet lodged in his brain, killing his memory.
I liked the film because it raises the interesting question of what revenge means if you are starting to forget, and Hallyday puts in a haunting performance as a tortured man with a mysterious past and a blank future.
To draws you into the story and demands your emotional involvement. But too many boring stereotypes and too many long, self-indulgent slow-mo shots make the film more forgettable than impactful.
As a shoot-'em-dead action film, the effects are not spectacular, and as a heartstring-tugger, the characters are underdeveloped and there are too many loose ends. Just another Hong Kong gangster movie, unfortunately.
- TODAY/rs
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