This movie opens with a big bang and closes with lots of big bangs. And between these spectacular extremes (the big bang; the many big bangs), you will not find one minute or scene that’s wasted on a digression, nor one minute or scene where a character (good or bad, male or female) stops to look at a sunset or sunrise or just to take in the city. There is none of that. All movements, words, facial expressions are used up by a fast-moving plot about two men, a dedicated cop and a devious drug dealer, who spend every bit of energy in their bodies looking for any opportunity that will gain them the upper hand in a struggle that involves the power of the state, large amounts of underworld capital, informal warehouses and factories, South Korean and Japanese investors, and a law that has deep roots in Chinese history (the infamous opium trade that brought on the “century of humiliation” for this ancient civilization). Drug War is Hong Kong cinema at its best.