Vengeance (2009)

A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter's family in Macau, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.

Director:

Johnnie To

Writer:

Ka-Fai Wai (screenplay) (as Wai Ka Fai)

Stars:

Johnny Hallyday, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Simon Yam

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Johnny Hallyday	...	Francis Costello
Anthony Chau-Sang Wong	...	Kwai (as Anthony Wong)
Simon Yam	...	George Fung
Suet Lam	...	Fat Lok (as Lam Suet)
Ka Tung Lam	...	Chu (as Lam Ka Tung)
Sylvie Testud	...	Irene Costello
Felix Wong	...	Python
Siu-Fai Cheung	...	Wolf (as Cheung Siu Fai)
Ting Yip Ng	...	Crow (as Ng Ting Yip Berg)
Maggie Siu	...	Madam Wong (as Maggie Shiu)
Stanley Sui-Fan Fung	...	Tony (as Feng Tsui Fan)
Michelle Ye	...	Big Mama
Jo Kuk	...	Crow's Wife (as Jo Koo)
Elena Kong	...	Wolf's Wife
Kawing	...	Python's Wife (as Karen Chan)

Storyline

In Macau, a family is attacked by three killers and only the wife survives severely wounded. Her father, the French chef Francis Costello, travels to Macau to visit his daughter in the hospital and steals the photos of his daughter, her husband and two children from the police department to seek revenge against the killers. Costello stumbles with the independent hit-men Kwai, Chu and Fat Lok that are under contract with the mobster George Fung at his hotel and he hires the trio to hunt down the killer of his daughter's family. They locate the killers in Hong Kong and they travel to kill them. But they have a surprise when they discover who ordered to kill the family.

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Plot Keywords:

amnesia | macau | hong kong | revenge | dead boy | 

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [France] Official site [Hong Kong]

Country:

Hong Kong France

Language:

Cantonese English French

Release Date:

20 May 2009 (France)

Also Known As:

Vengeance

Filming Locations:

Hong Kong, China

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,423,604

Company Credits

Production Co:

ARP Sélection, Media Asia Films, Milky Way Image Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Johnny Hallyday's character shares the same name as Jack Nicholson's character from The Departed. The only slight difference being the French "Francois Costello" instead of "Frank Costello".

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Goofs

In the final confrontation scene when Costello attacks in the Cafe, starts the action in the light of day, it seems at noon or sunset. Then when the bad guy escapes with his guards, appear in an alley, in total darkness, suddenly it got dark.

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Quotes

Costello: What is revenge?

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Connections

Follows The Mission (1999)

User Reviews

You can't say they didn't nail the title.

It's the same pre-credit sequence that has kick-started dozens of films over the last few decades: a happy and loving couple are gunned down for apparently no reason in brutal fashion – although in this case they take the next step and include the two young cute children in the massacre to increase the stakes.

Now the rest of the film will be about who is the most p*ssed off and desperate for revenge.

That guy is Mr Costello, the French father of the critically injured mother, her two children and husband all not surviving the killing. I should point out here that at times the language switches between Chinese, French (with subtitles) and English. The film takes place in Macau but while the Hubby was Asian, the wife – and Costello's daughter – was French. I don't know why I found this interesting but I did, but it doesn't drag you out of the story.

In true vigilante fashion Mr Costello eschews the traditional law and order approach to finding the killers, after a chance encounter at a crime scene Costello declines the opportunity to bring a killer to justice and instead tracks down the accused to enlist him and his team to help find his daughter's family's killers. An odd form of ambulance chasing indeed! The new trio of bad guys agree to hop on board after Costello promises them cash and the restaurant he owns. They start using their contacts and trade secrets to get swift results, during the process it becomes evident that the 65ish Costello has skillz of his own – even if they haven't been utilised for quite a while.

So why doesn't he track them down himself? Well aside from his lack of inside Macau knowledge Costello's advanced age has caused memory issues in a similar vein to that of the lead character in Memento – he too takes photos and scrawls on them for reminders, meaning he can be a little ineffective once he has a "turn".

The plot is reasonably formulaic with only subtle variations on the usual sequence of events – a major shootout is delayed by the arrival of several of the combatant's kids. Vengeance has a couple of nifty battles where various minions are picked off with clean kills while the main characters are lightly wounded with bloody clothes being the only lasting sign, until near the very end of the film where the Reservoir Dogs rule – that of "most/all must die" kicks in.

Final Rating – 7 / 10. Take a pinch of SPL, add the core elements of Taken and a dash of Memento and you have a pretty good um… ahhh… Vengeance film. I guess they nailed the title.