Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Yashua Kimbrough (jimniexperience) Media stunt movie surrounding cops tracking down robbers , everything taking place in a day .A bank heist in broad daylight leads to a shootout in busy streets and the suspects getting away . A highly dutiful inspector makes it his mission to arrest the criminals , and tracks them down in a highly populated high-rise apartmentSame time , police headquarters hires outside media to record and capture the live event , fore these criminals embarrassed the lack of discipline in the force during their escape . They hire the media to "clean their image"Meanwhile, as the task force closes in on the robbers in the apartment , contract killers are also hiding out in the complex . Believing the cops are after them , they join the sides of the robbers and storm into the fray . Will the criminals be able to escape the complex and elude the media at the same time ?

noralee "Breaking News (Dai si gein)" is one of the most urban crime thrillers I've ever seen, using the density and verticality of a modern city as an intense frame for the fast-paced action.Hong Kong here seems to have visually become like the futuristic cities with satellite cameras of "Blade Runner" and "Code 46," with almost all the action taking place with 360 degree views of narrow streets, crowded plazas, dark hallways and elevator shafts. There's a door-to-door attack in a corridor that throws down the now classic scene from "Oldboy" as so much balletic nonsense compared to this gritty but very beautiful realism, with cinematography by Siu-keung Cheng. Director Johnny To grabs our attention in the enthralling opening scene of a shoot-out on a Hong Kong street. With almost no dialog we can figure out that this is a stake-out going horribly wrong. While the scene dizzyingly must have been shot on a cherry-picker zooming up and down and around as if we are on on external elevator or hanging from windows with a zoom telephoto lens, the angles are always important as the camera swoops and narrows and broadens our view from shooter to victim to shooter to victim as we swivel to where the shots are heard. I felt like I was in the antenna of the aliens in "War of the Worlds." The visuals are always directly related to the sounds, as edited by David M. Richardson.Though I could only infer some of the internal politics within the police bureaucracy with the significance of some using English names and others traditional Chinese names amidst the various competing levels of authority, some of whom spoke stilted English, it was easy enough to pick up on the techie criminalist statistician vs. the on the ground street cop (a terrific Nick Cheung, who is like a thinking cop's Bruce Willis), let alone the difficulties a woman cop (Kelly Chen) has on the force. Her need to prove herself and her modern approach is a driving theme in the film and gives it considerable difference from a more conventional crime drama. She may be a neophyte at being in charge, but she is not an idiot.There are parallel old school/new school, gangsters vs. assassins with different rules and technology that get caught up in the siege though I wasn't sure of the details of all their intersecting plots. The criminals are considerably more charismatic than all the cops except "Inspector Cheung", and have a sense of humor during an amusing hostage taking. The instant, real-time new and old media attention in what is as much a door-to-door war between cops and criminals as in "Black Hawk Down" becomes part of their battle plans. It is as violent as a Paul Schrader or Martin Scorcese film, but has the mordant cynicism and humor of Billy Wilder, as the violence mocks the continued blandishments we see from the government officials about the falling crime rate.While script writers Hing-Ka Chan and Tin-Shing Yip may have intended the high tech PR-controlling official to be a satire like "Wag the Dog" in having controlling the press be an essential component of controlling crime, it is just a very small step beyond the NYC Police Department techniques innovated under former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. So it's a running gag that a kid with access to the Web can outwit their media manipulations. Survival seems to be based more on the results of the battle for public opinion.I wasn't sure if the Hong Kong police force always looks like storm troopers or if the production design was making a political point. Clearly there was some point to the hostages being surrounded by commercial symbols of Western capitalism and culture.The music by Ben Cheung and Chi Wing Chung supports the tension very effectively, including electronica and traditional instrumentation.Unfortunately, the film as distributed in theaters in the U.S. had the worst subtitles I have ever seen. Not only are they filled with spelling and quizzical grammatical errors, as well as frequently white on white, they seem to have been translated using an antique English dictionary. The most egregious distraction is constantly calling these bloody murderers the charming appellation of "bandits" -- how about thugs or gangsters or criminals or crooks or bad asses, and so forth. Why didn't a native English speaker look over these subtitles? At least the credits were mostly bi-lingual.

stensson A bunch of criminals kill a couple of cops. The police goes after them. The police have a progressive female boss who wants to put it all in media.This is supposed to say something about modern times and especially media times. If you thought "Natural Born Killers" was pathetic, don't watch "Breaking News". This criticism is not for real, it's obviously only a way of trying to be on Western level also than it comes to society satire. This script doesn't even reach comic book level. The directing and acting are even worse. There even isn't a descent amount of blood.Keep away!

Splattii This film has Hollywood written all over it. I'm sure there has to be at least one company looking to remake this for the US. Please understand by saying "Hollywood" I'm not suggesting it's good, more than I'm suggesting it fits the typical hollywood mold in terms of it's story and how it pans out.In all, I enjoyed this film. It's really fast paced and full of action, and has some beautiful shots of the city throughout. I would classify this in the same category as a Die Hard or something along those lines. Unfortunately I'm not a big "hollywood" fan, so I was expecting a bit more...and to be honest outside of the ending I wasn't let down.I have to be honest and say if the ending twisted the other way as opposed to the way it did, I would have scored this a 10. Unfortunately I'll give it somewhere between a 7 and 8 as the ending, although not bad, really didn't have the impact it should have, and caused the film to fall a bit short.On the other hand, if I went to a theatre (I'm in Canada) to see this, I would have enjoyed it because it's better than most Hollywood films. I guess it's all relative. If you enjoy movies like Die Hard or Speed, this film is for you. I can honestly say it outshines most American action films in the last couple of years.I don't want to give a lot away, but the story really is a good one, and the action is top notch. I'm sure if the movie isn't picked up, it will be re-done in another form with the same thesis being present in the film.