In retrospect, the films of Johnnie To—or of any director working in such a medium—can be easily diminished to nothings. Many people will bash these films for a lack of any sort of coherent narrative entity and the fact that visuals seem to be first priority. But this is precisely what To's films are all about: typical gangster, even senseless, narrative coupled with masterful visuals and ubiquitous slickness. By diminishing his films, one is basically diminishing a subsequent genre known as the western—and To's newest concotion, Exiled, is no less that than any other type of western out now. A glorious, wondrously effectual film that's smashingly relaxed and presented, his new film takes place in Macao, as two mysterious Gang Members—Blaze (Anthony Wong) Tai (Francis Ng), we later learn—arrive at a home to kill a once-member of their gang, Wo (Nick Cheung). The beautiful yet immediately austere sequence leads to a stunning shoot out scene—an aspect that the viewer will clearly return to throughout the film. Wo later is to rejoin the gang, as a new pair of enemies haunts them: Boss Fay's (Simon Yam) men. Breathtaking scenes overlap one another with To's perfect realization of the characters—and not to mention the true mastery behind the film, its cinematography. Quite frankly, in these types of films, photography does not get much better then this. (With the glide-cam and dollie, To is able to, without any doubt, administer a certain tone to the film—one that's almost pitch-perfect in the western genre.) To's characters are also marvelous, as each possesses a wry personality; by the film's ending—albeit ridiculously and excessively cool—one senses what is the outcome and what they must do. It is also by the film's ending that one realizes something that the completely awful The Departed was unable to do: transport the viewer to a world only existential in that of film.
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