The Mission (1999) is a chilly, stripped-down action movie with fascinating and productive contradictions. Unlike many Hong Kong gangster films, it doesn’t depict bloodshed as heroic; instead, it glamorizes characters whose lives are full of tedium. The film begins with a brief prologue that moves through Hong Kong, introducing five men via split-screens and wipes. During this sequence, it is revealed that the Triad boss Mr. Lung (Eddy Ho Kung) and his brother Frank (Simon Yam) have hired them as bodyguards following an attempt on the former’s life. But despite their ties to the mob, some of the bodyguards still work ordinary jobs. Curtis (Anthony Wong), for example, is a hair stylist and, moving up in Hong Kong society, Roy (Francis Ng) owns a nightclub.
The film’s structure is very unorthodox, so much so that summarizing its narrative betrays what it feels like to watch The Mission. It’s as though shooting without a script led director Johnnie To to land on a lopsided plot full of awkward rhythms. It is a film made up of long, boring passages that are broken up by sudden acts of violence. But The Mission does actually follow a three-act structure, albeit an unusual one; its first act consists of a very brief introduction, its second act lasts one hour, and its third act crams a great deal more of the story into the film’s final 20 minutes. Had The Mission followed an orthodox, actually planned script, it might’ve been a rather generic gangster film, but the degree of experimentation To brings to the project transforms it into an enigmatic experiment.
To’s film has a realistic notion of the boredom and high-stakes tension that working as a bodyguard entails. Even when it details the endless moments the film’s bodyguards spend playing pranks on each other or compulsively eating nuts, The Mission’s bodyguards are framed as though they were advertising expensive suits and posing for a fashion shoot. A key example of this is evident in a shot of the bodyguards, flanking Mr. Lung, riding escalators through the Tsuen Wan Shopping Mall. Naturally, it is broken up by gunshots. Here, it becomes clear that the bodyguards in The Mission are tourists in a world of wealth; as they take stock following the assassination attempt, the shadows of a swimming pool’s waves shimmer against the white walls of Mr. Lung’s house.
The Mission screens this evening, September 13, and on September 18, at the Museum of Modern Art on 35mm as part of the series “Chaos and Order: The Way of Johnnie To.”
