Cult Cinema Saves The World
Asian cinema is a huge passion of ours and at the beating heart of this obsession is Asian crime dramas. There’s just something about this genre of films that Asian cinema does better than any other.
And yes, we know that we’ve already stated that we consider Across 110th Street to be the best crime story ever told, but that should have come with the proviso that we meant the best American crime story ever told. We are also aware that we’ve claimed that The Man from Nowhere is Korean cinema’s greatest ever movie, so you will be surprised to find that it doesn’t even make this top 5, which we have no excuse for outside of the fact that we were possibly drunk when we wrote the original article and there has been a 14-year span between its release and today. Despite these two minor slip-ups, we feel that we’ve watched more than enough of these types of films to be able to bring you a list of our Top 5 Asian Crime Dramas.
Number 5: Youth of the Beast
And what better place to start than the Daddy of all Asian crime dramas, Youth of the Beast. Released in 1963, there is an argument to be made that Youth of the Beast laid out the template for all future Asian crime dramas. True, there had been other dalliances within the genre, but Youth of the Beast was, as far as we’re concerned, the movie that first put in place a formula that would become tried and tested over the next 60-plus years.
Youth of the Beast sees a man named Jo play two opposing Yakuza gangs off against each other in a dangerous game of cat and mouse—and we warn you now, that phrase may get used far too often during this piece—as he tries to… well… if we tell you that, then you’ll have no reason to watch this movie, now will you? And watch it you should.
Youth of the Beast is a brilliantly written, brilliantly acted Asian crime drama that possesses a hell of a double twist ending that you won’t see coming until it happens, and it should be a jumping-off point for anyone even remotely interested in this genre.
Number 4: The Killer
If you have any interest in Hong Kong cinema, then you’ll know all about The Killer. John Woo’s ultra-violent, ultra-stylish, bullet ballet is seen as a massive shot to the arm for a genre that was, if not on its last legs, crawling toward the exit door. The body count is high and the bullets fly as Chow Yun Fat’s hitman, Ah Jong, takes one more job that will change the course of his life.
A killer with a moralistic code, after blinding a club singer by accident on a previous contract, he takes a final bow to be able to pay for her medical bills and help restore her sight. Unfortunately, his days seem to be numbered after his old boss, Johnny Weng, decides that he needs to be silenced, while Danny Lee’s Detective Li Ying hunts him down.
A lot has been said about how The Killer is a fantastic action movie, which it is, but it’s the story of the strange friendship between the killer and the policeman that is central to everything that happens. Without it, The Killer would just be another shoot ’em up for the sake of shooting them up, but thanks to an intricate plot that is full of twists and turns, as well as some outstanding set pieces, The Killer never once fails to keep you riveted to the screen.
Number 3: Infernal Affairs
Infernal Affairs is better than The Departed. There. Got that out of the way. Feel free to yell at us in the comments section, but we don’t care. Infernal Affairs is better than The Departed for one reason. Tension.
This movie oozes tension from the first frame to the last. It is so tense that every time we watch it—and trust us, we’ve watched this movie a truckload—we are always amazed by the fact that it still has us wondering if Lau and Chan are going to get discovered as the two rats within their respective organizations before the movies end, EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THEY BLOODY DON’T!
This is all down to some fantastic direction and near-perfect acting from all involved (such as the scene where the police and the gangsters are jousting back and forth during a drug deal) and it is, in our humble opinion, Andy Lau’s best piece of work.
Number 2: SPL
If Infernal Affairs is Andy Lau’s best piece of work then SPL is Donnie Yen’s masterpiece. A movie that raises the question of what happens when the cops are no better than the bad guys, SPL tells a tale of corruption, murder, and brotherhood, with a heavy dose of martial arts arse-kicking thrown in for good measure.
Police Inspector Chan has spent years trying to put Wong Po behind bars, and after Po has a witness in his custody killed in a planned car crash, which also took the life of the witness’s wife, Chan’s men, and left him and their child as the only survivors, he vows that no matter what, and no matter the cost, he will see Wong Po in jail or dead.
SPL isn’t for anyone who likes upbeat movies, as it’s a massive f*cking downer of a film, but it’s because of this that we love it so. It would’ve been very easy for an American film company to brighten this up and send everyone home happy, but SPL doesn’t care about any of that rubbish. It follows its story to its heart-breaking and gut-wrenching conclusion and you will go along for the ride because you just have to know.
The fight scenes are excellent, and don’t feel that they are just crowbarred in to appease fans of Donnie Yen. If you need any proof of that, then the alleyway fight between Donnie Yen and Wu Jing will set your mind at ease.
It’s fast, it’s brutal, and much like SPL itself, it is a work of art.
Number 1: New World
New World is, as far as we’re concerned, the greatest movie ever made. And no, we don’t just mean the greatest Asian movie ever made, or the greatest crime drama ever made, but the actual factual greatest piece of cinema ever created.
Every single moment of New World is perfectly crafted, no shot is wasted, no line is thrown away, and no action isn’t meticulously thought through before the camera starts to roll. It’s that damn good. In a previous life, we reviewed New World for another site and gave it 9 out of 10, but we were wrong. It is a 10 out of 10 movie every day of the week and the only one we’ve ever thought that highly of.
As writers we have, at times, found ourselves wishing we’d written something that someone else did before us. For example, Jack Kerouac’s On The Road always springs to mind, as does the line “You can tell by the way I use my walk/I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk” from the Bee Gees’ Staying Alive. We can honestly say, hand on heart, that if we’d written New World, we’d have given up writing the second that the ink had dried on the page, knowing that we would never write anything as good, ever again.
But we didn’t, so you’re stuck with us.
We don’t want to delve into anything that happens within New World, as we want you to experience it yourself, unarmed as we were when we first saw it, but we will say that it not only raised the bar for crime dramas across the board but for what real cinema can, and should, aspire to be.
But what do you think? Do any of these make your Top 5 Asian Crime Dramas? Have we missed any out? Sound off in the comments section and let us know.
