Johnnie To’s BREAKING NEWS (2004) opens with a crane shot of a cool guy in a leather jacket (Haitao Li, VENGEANCE, GALLANTS, MOTORWAY) walking down a block into a building, and the camera floats up and looks into the window of the room where he tells his fellow armed robbers, led by Yuen (Richie Jen, EXILED), that it’s time to bring the money out to the car. Then the camera lowers back down to the street where hotshot inspector Cheung (Nick Cheung, AH KAM) and his loyal subordinate Sergeant Hoi (Hui Shiu-hung, ROYAL WARRIORS, NAKED KILLER, LEGENDARY ASSASSIN) are in a car staking them out. They’re concerned about two unwitting patrol officers stopping the thieves’ car for a traffic violation – could mess everything up. The shot will continue uninterrupted as one of the officers asks about a bag in the back seat and then the guns come out. The camera turns every which way to see the different sides firing at each other, the civilians fleeing, the backup police cars arriving. It cranes up to get a look at the guy hanging out a window firing a rifle down, then hopping onto a ledge and dropping to the street to run. It doesn’t cut until the thieves flee the scene in a stolen police van.

The only thing I knew about BREAKING NEWS was that people made a big deal about this long take at the time (it’s about 7 minutes). But since then we’ve had TOM YUM GOONG, CHILDREN OF MEN, HANNA, BIRDMAN, 1917, ATHENA, etc., so it not only is it a more common technique now, but this is a relatively subtle use of it . It certainly doesn’t seem like the point of the movie. It’s just a cool way to open it and show how these characters are tied together.

The cops chase the criminals on foot, which works out because the van gets trapped in gridlock from a nasty accident. That’s why every news crew in town happens to be on the scene to get footage and stills of an officer raising his hands in surrender when a gun is pointed at his head. (He gets killed anyway).

“This has caused a public uproar. Legislators challenge the police’s ability to protect citizens,” says the news. The Associate Commissioner (special appearance by Simon Yam shortly after LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER – THE CRADLE OF LIFE and right before WAKE OF DEATH) calls an URGENT MEETING and everybody says actually the crime rate is very low in Hong Kong, we can catch them soon, everything will be all right, etc. Then the commish calls on Superintendent Rebecca Fong (Kelly Chen, INFERNAL AFFAIRS) who says “Image matters most. We have to put on a show. An eye for an eye. This is the age of media. The media got us— now we get back at them.”

For some reason he likes her style, so he puts Fong in charge of the response, and one of the first things she does is call Cheung and tell him to stay out of it. Good luck with that.

One thing I’ve ascertained from this and a few other movies is that apparently in Hong Kong you can buy a roasted sweet potato from street vendors? Sounds like paradise. Sergeant Hoi is a a funny character, always suffering these little indignities, like he thinks he doesn’t have enough time to stop for a potato, but Cheung gets him to do it, and then they have to leave before he finishes it. He keeps explaining that he has “a weak stomach” because he keeps farting, which is not my favorite activity to depict in a movie, but I will forgive it here. Poor guy.

But it’s really more about the thieves trying to get away than the cops dealing with stomach issues. Or at least the thieves and their predicament are more compelling. They end up cornered in a ninth floor apartment, taking a single father and his two young kids hostage. Mr. Yip is likable because he’s played by Lam Suet (one of his 14 movies that year) and he’s relatable because he doesn’t want to be a hostage but also hates cops. He tries to cooperate to keep them happy but his son has been taught that thieves are bad so he keeps stubbornly refusing to cooperate. A funny gag.

Also (I’m a little confused by this) there’s a killer from a rival gang (?), Chun (You Yong, RED CLIFF) who happens to be hiding out in the same building, and they let him into the apartment when police throw a bomb in the hallway. It’s one of those nice Johnny To situations where there’s tension between the thieves, the killer and the hostages but they bond by having a meal together. First they tell Yip to cook for them but then they realize he’s not a very good cook, so Yuen and Chun put on aprons, start slicing vegetables and meat, immediately they’re smiling, talking about wanting to use their money to start their own restaurants.

And they all sit down at the table and have a meal together, saying it’s their destiny. Best part of the movie. Yip gets out the special occasion wine, says, “Dinnertime, kids. Uncle Killer and Uncle Bandit prepared it, all right?”

Meanwhile, Fong masterminds the media strategy, hiring a movie director to edit footage, touching up stills to look more heroic, adding music and sound effects, directing officers where to go. She says “Tell the media I’ll feed them news every half hour,” and of course the media will dutifully open their mouths for that feeding. But they’re much more willing to criticize the police than the American media has ever been. I wonder if that’s accurate? I’ve never been to Hong Kong.

The thieves get crude 2004 cell-cam footage of the police bombing them, get the kid to upload it to the Web (you know how kids know how to use computers), and it instantly gets played on the news. Especially hard to believe back then, when things spread slower, but oh well. When the thieves upload footage of their meal Fong worries they’re being upstaged and gets box lunches for all the officers, to humanize them. “They also need to eat. You get it?”

There are shoot outs, a part where Yip tries to escape out the window on a sheet rope, gets stuck and they help him back up, and a great tense confrontation on a moving bus with a motorcycle following and shooting. The stunt coordinator is Yuen Bun (MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG, KNOCK OFF, FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE, YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON, KUNG FU KILLER). I also like the part where Uncle Bandit and Uncle Killer are climbing down the elevator shaft, comparing the difficulty of their illegal occupations, and Cheung is above. They take some shots and taunt each other, making each other laugh.

When it’s all over, Commissioner Fong and Inspector Cheung are publicly singled out for commendation. One of them looks more pleased about it than the other.

The character of Fong and Chen’s performance as her are highlights for me. She’s a completely unlikable character with a perpetual frown – when her mouth smiles her eyes don’t – and she never stops being fascinating.

The “written by” credit says “Chan Hing Kai, Ip Tin Shing, Milkyway Creative Team.” Milkyway Image is To’s production company, and I guess their team of writers (including co-founder Wa Ka-Fai, TOO MANY WAYS TO BE NO. 1) are sometimes credited that way. Chan wrote A BETTER TOMORROW and THE MERMAID, Ip wrote THROW DOWN and EXILED. Impressive credentials.

Here’s an odd fact: there’s a 2009 Russian language remake called GORYACHI NOVOSTI (or NEWSMAKERS). It’s from Swedish director Anders Banke, who did the vampire movie FROSTBITE (2006), and the Wikipedia plot summary makes it sound pretty faithful to the original. Unrelated, I am currently pursuing the rights to do a remake called BREAKIN’ NEWS where it’s set inside Miracles, the rainbow colored community center from BREAKIN’ 2.

It’s interesting to me that To made BREAKING NEWS right before THROW DOWN and they were released in the same year, but this was the more acclaimed one. It won best director and best film editing at the Golden Horse Film Awards (Taipei), best director at the Gorilla Awards (Sitges), was nominated for best film, director and supporting actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards. I guess I can see how it could happen – this is an entertaining mainstream movie with a light satirical message to it that maybe seemed more timely in the moment. THROW DOWN is more about life and relationships than any sort of simple message, so it’s the one that’s beautiful and unique 20 years later, while BREAKING NEWS is just pretty cool.

But pretty cool is positive. I’m for it. A lesser Johnnie To movie is still better than most movies by some chump who’s not Johnnie To.