LGM Film Club, Part 523: Drug War

2012’s Drug War is one of the more interesting films of Johnnie To. This film is about a meth ring and the cops who are determined to bust it. The plot is fairly complicated in terms of detail–there are multiple layers of gangsters that go pretty far up the social ladder and they all need introduction and the layers unpeeled. The device for this is a guy who caught caught and is willing to play stoolie in order to avoid the death penalty, which is what drug dealers get in China. But then he might just want to eliminate those above him as he schemes his own escape. The cops are determined. The gangsters not that dumb except for the low-level meth heads. It’s a solid procedural.

What makes this interesting is that it was about this time that To started being comfortable becoming a hack for the Chinese state. This is an everyone dies kind of film, so don’t get too attached to the characters. But there’s zero questioning whether the death penalty is appropriate for dealers and it is used in this film too, including a scene actually recreating the character receiving the death penalty. This leads to a bigger question–does this matter? Should I care that the film pushes a politics that I personally find reprehensible, but which is hardly uncommon in much of Asia? My sense is that no, I am not looking for my politics to be repeated back to myself in films. On the other hand, To worked directly with the Chinese government here, who evidently didn’t care about the violence or blood but very much cared about the message of what happens if you deal drugs. At its worst, this part of it is pretty bad, such as an undercover cop who snorts cocaine in order to do his job and freaks out in a totally ridiculous way. Well, whatever.

The film itself is above average To, which means it’s not Election or Exiled or Vengeance, but it is a very solid procedural, the kind of thing you’d watch if it was directed by Barry Levinson or Michael Mann and be quite pleased. It’s not without its problems though.