I don't understand why is there powder instead of blood splash at every gunshot .. LMAO ... what is this ? can any body explain whats going on here, I have seen many Chinese movies with amazing action choreography, I tried to watch this movie but when i saw a gunshot and there was red chilli powder coming out of the wound i was like W.T..F.. what is this where is blood man is this some kind of a joke ????????

I'm one of those people who will never get Johnny To movies. He specializes in "re-imagining" the modern HK gangster and urban crime drama by sloppily superimposing it with classic western mythos. The problem is Exile suffers just as the rest of his movies often do from over exuberance and a significant director's attention deficit disorder when it comes to keeping the audience enthralled like Leone or Peckinpah did rather than snickering from the implausible scenarios presented on screen. The character interaction in Exile is often cheesy, melodramatic, and while there is loads of charisma from the 5 HK co-stars there is not a single line worthy repeating in this review.Exile obviously doesn't exist in any kind of real world but a parallel universe in which doors can fly off hinges and twirl around in mid air from the impact of gun shots. You also get plenty of mugging for the camera and slo-mo pose offs with constipated grimaces by the actors. There is also some obvious product placement (Red Bull) which gives the entire movie a ridiculous campy atmosphere. The entire experience borders on self parody and if it weren't for some interesting action scenes and good music his movies would be about the equivalent of made for cable trash that you would find on U.S. cable channels. With that being said, even at To's worst his movies are made on a relatively tiny budget and look like they cost much more. So on a dollar per quality ratio I suppose he's pretty profitable and I can understand why HK studios shower him with projects.

Johnnie To has 50 films under his belt and is becoming a peer of John Woo with his stylized flicks that contain smoking action and great choreography with magnificent sound.On has to wonder how these people ever got jobs as hit men. They couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. It's just as well, because with all the shooting, it would be over far too quickly.It is amazing how they manage to have a gun fight and then sit down to dinner like nothing happened, and then say that they have to kill Wo (Nick Cheung), but agree to do it at his convenience. Well, they are childhood friends, but orders have to be obeyed, they just don't have to be obeyed right at the moment.What a finale!

Unrealistic, plodding, stupid and unsatisfying is what springs to mind to describe this gangster flick. I found the editing to be very clunky with way too much dead time that continually wiped out any momentum this movie could get going.The scene near the end with the river and the field on the opposite shore was comical it was so bad and so pathetically unrealistic.An important thing in an action film is suspension of disbelief- this never occurs in this dumb movie- it's always you sitting there going jeez- like that could ever happen that's lame.This movie is not slick, it is not high action, it is high body count but the violence is stupid, cartoonish and very boring.I could not make it through this stupid wretch and wound up fast forwarding in the hopes it might have a good scene- but none were to be found.Blow the dust off of HARD BOILED and watch that instead.