Event

DRUG WAR

Exclusive Area Premiere!

(2012) dir Johnnie To w/Louis Koo, Sun Honglei, Huang Yi, Li Jing [107 min; in Mandarin and Cantonese with English subtitles]
Manufacturing just fifty grams of meth in China will earn you a death sentence. Timmy Choi (Koo) has manufactured tons, and after a violent lab accident, he's in the custody of Captain Zhang (Sun). Now he has only one chance to avoid execution: turn informant and help Zhang's undercover team take down the powerful cartel he's been cooking for.

Long considered the master of the Hong Kong crime thriller, Johnnie To's first mainland production eschews action mayhem in favor of atmosphere and a tightly-wound plot punctuated with impeccably choreographed bursts of startlingly realistic violence, in this intricate puzzle box of a film.