The movie begins with a bravura 8-minute opening shot that is almost mind-blowing in its complexity. Imagine the most elaborate tracking shot that DePalma or Scorsese ever attempted and place it in the middle of a full-tilt HK action sequence in which an entire city block erupts into war zone chaos. It starts quietly enough, with two detectives staking out the building where some suspected thieves are operating, but when a pair of unknowing beat cops passing by happen to stop one of the crooks for a minor traffic violation, this makes everyone nervous and before you know it all hell has broken loose. Shots are fired, armed bandits with machine guns pop out from every direction, snipers appear on the rooftops, cars explode left and right, and the camera is all over the place, swishing and swooping to keep up the action, never cutting away. It's a mini movie all on its own, and a hell of a way to start the picture.

Things don't let up from there. The criminals flee to a crowded apartment building, taking the complex over and holding one family hostage. This is when Inspector Rebecca arrives on the scene and, reeling from the PR backlash of civilians complaining on the news about their unsafe streets, attempts to "direct" the crisis from her control center, feeding the news broadcasts carefully choreographed images of heroic police officers rushing in to take charge of the situation. Even though real people's lives hang in the balance, to Rebecca the whole thing is just a publicity event to be handled. This extends to ridiculous extremes such as taking exit polls of fleeing residents: "How do you rate the evacuation?"

For their part, the criminals respond in kind using cell phones, a web cam, and an internet connection to send their own equally biased depiction of the events to the same news channels, including footage of them treating their hostages kindly and sitting down to a nice meal in the middle of the siege. So goes back-and-forth a technological and psychological media battle between the two sides, each trying to manipulate public sympathy for their cause. Caught in the middle of all this is a young cop whose squad has gone into the building against Rebecca's orders, seemingly the only ones who care more about catching the criminals and saving lives than about how they look on TV.

In recent years, the Hong Kong film industry has churned out many silly, overblown action movies loaded with hyperkinetic stunts and violence but with little attention paid to the quality of their scripts. Johnnie To continues to break that mold. At barely 90 minutes, Breaking News is a short but tightly wound thriller, smart and action-packed. It moves along at a breakneck pace yet still manages to develop interesting, complex characters. This is Hong Kong cinema at its best.

Final Thoughts: Breaking News is a terrific edge-of-your-seat thriller with fantastic action scenes and a great plot. Fans of HK cinema are advised to give it a look...

A failed police operation to catch a dangerous gang of Mainland thieves, led by Yuen (Riche Ren - Elixir Of Love, Fly Me To Polaris) leads to the TV- and newspaper journalists catching the sight of an Hong Kong police officer surrendering at gunpoint. A potential image breaker for the Hong Kong police, that impression has to be reversed and when the wanted Mainlanders take refuge in a residential building, the police operation not only becomes about catching but about image, an operation led by Rebecca Fong (Kelly Chen - Lost And Found, Infernal Affairs III). The thieves realize that two can play at that game though...

No doubt the most successful cinematic style, in my view, that Johnnie To has brought to Hong Kong cinema has been through The Mission and PTU, while some of the works he's produced more resembles Breaking News. Most prominently so, Expect The Unexpected (yay, I was right!). But that's stalking style, not all out content. With a fairly short running time, To consciously opts for less quirkiness, less character depth (or rather serviceable) and more slam-bang action-thriller filmmaking. Heck, this is even approaching hugely commercial but thank god it's not in the vein of Needing You!

Breaking News starts with a bang, and it's a long one. I read prior that To wanted to accomplish a 7 minute long, one take action set piece for this film and roughly 2 minutes in, that is right in our faces courtesy of the street shootout. I also read that To had trouble accomplishing exactly how he conceived this and what's there is admirable considering its length but also comes with bumpy and shaky camerawork. It's a neat little concept that comes with flaws that became difficult to overcome on a schedule one must guess. The good thing is, Breaking News doesn't go downhill after this big opening as the well-paced chase scenario, soon confined to select locations, continues to develop.

Development that is more about achieving tension in the media game played out between cops and robbers with shooutouts in between. There is a topic brought up here by To about the power of the media but also how easy it is to affect and spin the truth. This isn't slamming the media because this case really doesn't come out of sensationalistic journalism but it's a rather slight examination in the long run, rather than a full-on satire. At times, To goes into quirky territory as the highly tension filled stakeout by media and police is interrupted by lunch and the film actually manages to be humorous here without the moods disrupting each other. Considering it features flatulence gags on two occasions, the fact that laughs can be found is a testament to the thinking of Johnnie in regards to HOW, oh HOW, to properly have humour enter and exit the picture.

Outside of this main theme and portrayals, the cliché of the different branches within police not working together appears but it's easy to let go off . It plays out well in the 90 minutes of action-thriller entertainment that nor is Hollywood or your usual 2004 Hong Kong thrill-ride. The reason? Johnnie To, Cheng Siu-Keung Yuen Bun and all the rest of our usual Milkyway suspects that reliably delivers the technical goods!

First of all, we welcome back the beautiful scope frame that many Milkyway productions began adapting when starting out back in the late 90s. Main location that cinematographer Cheng Siu-Keung shoots is the confined hallways of the residential building and while not playing with the huge contrast between light and dark as in PTU, there seems to exist a conscious choice to light so naturally that you sometimes don't see the actors. It's a questionable choice but the rest of the cinematography work a treat as Cheng keeps the camera moving and shoots some very crowded and exciting Hong Kong street location footage to great effect.

Yuen Bun also recalls some of his best action- and stunt work from the past Milkyway productions, in particular one of his finest in that regard, Expect The Unexpected. Even the big opening shootout does suitable retain a level headed nod to realism with no ballistic outbursts and main gunplay in the residential building plays out very similar. While not emphasizing it as much, he and To, really do make unknown figures deaths hurt a little bit more than it really has to. Human lives, especially civilians, are still human lives, which produces a good, lasting effect. That theme, again, is more profound in the mentioned Expect The Unexpected.

For the actors, the writing team really only provides 90 minute arcs, which works absolutely fine based on what the film itself is. Contrary to what you might think, Nick Cheung really is the third man here, playing the super-rash and hard boiled cop who just got to, got to, got to, catch them bastard thieves. Again, there's no real harm in presenting him like that if you're not aiming for depth but also, you need someone who can make those rather simplistic traits work. Cheung actually adapts himself decently in that regard, not playing to his otherwise known comedic persona one bit. For his character, To does inject some sly doses of humour when it comes to his relentless pursuit of the bad guys, in particular during a bus chase at the end.

No, this is more Kelly Chen and Richie Ren's picture. Starting with Kelly, who has to be considered the weak link here, although I was expecting worse. Playing the team leader of the operation, at times she equips herself well and radiates authority and at others, her delivery comes off as awkward and unnatural. As written towards the end, her apparent strength as a female character gives way for some clichéd happenings and solutions that doesn't really ruin or enhance, it's just too familiar of an outcome, for women.

Richie Ren therefore stands out the most. In particular since he finally breaks through with traits such as coldness, charisma, slight humanity and is adept as an action participant. It's definitely a slight performance just because this again isn't much of a character to work with but Ren brings as much as one could hope for, quite well so. It's also a sign of versatility as we've seen him in lighter roles this year and this is a step forward for the Taiwanese actor. Lam Suet provides reliable and welcome support as the father of the family whose apartment is used as refuge for the Mainlanders. Simon Yam and Maggie Shaw log "special appearances as well, with the former role feeling rather pointless in the whole.

Johnnie To's Breaking News delivers fast-paced and tension-filled action entertainment with little attention to characters and a media study of smaller proportions. However, it's a choice that greatly succeeds. Take that and the excellent technical merits and you can chalk up a Johnnie To effort that plays out more like the Milkyway efforts he produced during the late 90s. We've been missing that as well, Johnnie.