As
we slowly steadily de-criminalize drug possession, China has doubled and
tripled down on the drug war. Permissiveness just isn’t Xi-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed Jinping’s
style. Tragically, the 2011 Mekong River Massacre of Chinese merchant sailors
provided plenty of propaganda fodder. At least the war on drugs is explosively
entertaining in Alan Mak & Anthony Pun’s Extraordinary Mission (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
Lin
Kai, as he is now known, is an undercover cop, who has a very personal reason
to crusade against the drug cartels. He quickly apprentices himself to Cheng
Yi, the chief distributor in the depressed industrial city of Yunlai, but when
a drug deal goes suspiciously sour, Lin Kai makes a play to ingratiate himself
with the Golden Triangle supplier.
The
Double Eagle Cartel is led by the erratic but charismatic leader, Eagle. His
chief deputies are his surrogate son and daughter. With Cheng Yi under cloud of
suspicion, Lin Kai makes a bid to replace him. Of course, Eagle’s vetting
process is pretty harrowing. He even drugs the undercover into a temporary
state of heroin addiction. However, our hero is made of stern stuff.
Ordinarily, his handler, Li Jianguo is also highly disciplined. However, when
Li learns Eagle has secretly imprisoned his presumed dead partner for ten
years, all bets are off.
There
is plenty of corruption and betrayal in Mission,
but karma is the real killer. These characters have shared history and grudges
worthy of classical tragedy. Everything and everyone is connected, in ways that
simmer and burn.
Established
HK director Mak knows his way around the underworld and its intersection with
the realm of law enforcement, having co-helmed the Infernal Affairs and Overheard
trilogies. Of course, working with Mainland and Southeast Asian settings
frees his characters from any pesky constitutional restraints that could slow
down the action. He and Pun (the cinematographer who shot the Overheards, making his [co-]directorial
debut) put the pedal to the metal, especially during the maelstrom of the third
act. Bullets fly, motorcycles fly, cars crash, and bodies go thud.
Xuan
Huang is perfectly serviceable as the silently brooding Lin Kai, whereas Duan
Yihong is flamboyantly villainous as the borderline psychotic Eagle. Zu Feng is
awesomely steely as Li, while Lang Yueting is terrific as Eagle’s haunted and
mysterious “daughter,” Qingshui.
