I saw the North American Premeire of CUSTOMS FRONTLINE at the New York Asian Film Festival. It was a crazy screening where people kept popping off the line to take pictures of the guests who where going on to the red carpet. When star Nicholas Tse was arriving things got completely out of hand as a good chunk of the ticket holders and standby lines ran to take pictures- just as they were letting people in.
The film concerns a bunch of Hong Kong customs agents who are dropped into a battle to stop an illegal arms dealer named Dr Raw who is running her weapons through the port of Hong Kong. After Interpol gets involved things turn deadly as several officers, including Tse's ex wife, are killed. Soon after they learn that there is a trader in their midst.
Tse called the film a throw back to the old style Hong Kong action films and it is, complete with nonsensical plotting and crazy ass action. This is like watching an old film but done with today's technology.
The plot is a gawd awful mess. It makes no sense. Outside of Hong Kong there are no real places. Things just happen because. Everything is soap opera, with everyone being motivated by dead people.It results in everyone having one facial expression- very serious and emotionally broken.
And then just as the plot is going on there is a left turn about mental illness which gives us plot line that one of the characters is bi-polar and doesn't want to be on his meds. The introduction was so bad and out of left field the audience roared. And then it's exploited mercilessly. The villain is a non-entity and simply shows up to yell at her minions to do something from various locations. She's clearly left alive for a sequel.
The film also shows signs of Mainland China's interference with so much of it Rah Rah for our side, with everyone outside of the traitor doing their duty to the end.
The action is what you'll want to see and there are some spectacular sequences. There is fight in an inflatable boat, the stealing of the weapons from the custom agents, a wicked car chase, and a final battle on a container ship, all of which will leave you with your jaw hanging open. (We'll not talk about the bombing of the village in the war sequence because it's very silly) It is almost all fantastic, but there isn't enough of it and there is a lot of dead time where we are stuck in a story that has plot holes the size of an ocean (seriously on the train home we were discussing how the film simply never address all sorts of plot threads)
I loved the action but the plot is so bad.
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