Extreme, violent and unforgiving, AHero Never Diesis a thriller in the form of a modern-day Western - a rarified, metaphysical no-man’s-land of brutal powerplay in which two professional killers are caught up in a ferocious, endless fight between rival triads. Johnnie To, a brilliant director of action films and a wizard at handling actors, centres the film emotionally on the two hired guns - men who leave parallel lives and are joined by the same destiny, and who end up transforming their mutual esteem into a tragic alliance.
In Thailand, two rival bosses are engaged in a war with no clear outcome, each helped by a professional gunman. Martin (Lau Ching-wan) is tough, always wears a cowboy hat, and has a big cigar hanging from his mouth; he has never made a mistake or lost a fight. His opposing number, Jack (Hong Kong pop star Leon Lai), is both courageous and ruthless. In the first half of the film, their only objective is to kill each other; in the (inverted) second half, set in Hong Kong, their only objective is to kill those who betrayed them. In a long sequence that’s among the most beautiful and mysterious in Hong Kong action cinema, the two face off in a bar decorated like a Western saloon - a mixture of references to western movies as well as a tribute to To’s ability to create a
sense of tragic expectation through his characters.
The direction is elegant and highly stylised: closeups of small details, sparse dialogue, recurrent imagery (blood-like wine, spinning coins), fluid slow-motion, and shot/reverse-shot editing. These are characters whose lives forever hang by a thread, transformed from masters into victims, and caught up in a duel that requires resolution.
Sabrina Baraccetti