Exiled

2006 ‘放‧逐’ Directed by Johnnie To

A friendship is formed between an ex-gangster, and two groups of hitmen - those who want to protect him and those who were sent to kill him.

Anthony Wong Francis Ng Simon Yam Nick Cheung Richie Ren Xian-Qi Roy Cheung Josie Ho Lam Suet Gordon Lam Eddie Cheung Ellen Chan Tam Bing-Man Hui Siu-Hung Ronald Yan Wah Wo Wong

Alternative Titles

Fong juk, 放逐

action crime thriller

110 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★

74
Brotherhood as structure. Precisely mannered by Johnnie To, Exiled opens up the space for tension between comradery and business - the pleasures and pressures of masculine codes. The shoot-outs glow with puffy blood clouds and intimate glances. Has one of the greatest opening scenes.
Review by laird ★★★★★ 6

The Stand By Me of triad films. I'm glad I watched The Mission within the last month, because it really gave Exiled a "we're getting the old band back together" feel. I love watching these guys together, and clearly they love working together (and with To). So much is communicated in their glances and gestures to one another. While seemingly every major action director was still dragging out Matrix "bullet time" and stale 90s Hong Kong tricks, To is constantly experimenting and innovating with how to stage and film a shootout. Here billowing curtains, tarps, and misty blood add kineticism to the typically tense and tight fixed location gun play. It's extremely exciting, quirky, and funny, as I've come to expect from To, but unlike any of his other movies I've seen, I found this one genuinely moving (as opposed to just rousing, if that makes sense). Maybe that's just the cold medicine talking, I don't know.
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 12

Well hello Mister To.
I thought I already knew all the masters of Hong Kong; those who had taken the next step beyond the flying kicks and 64 hands, but apparently I didn’t. I’m not, by the way, taking a shot at the poetry of the martial arts. It’s just something that I never really connected with.
I can see why Quentin admires Johnnie To. They are brothers from different mothers. I can see one of my favourite directors, Wong Kar-wai, giving a sideways look, too. Johnnie To has an understanding of characters; he has an innate sense of plotting, he has heart, and he has style in spades.
Watching this film out of the blue, right in the middle…
Review by Jake ★★★★

brotherhood. guys doing cool shit. ice cold.
Review by Tao A ★★★★★ 7

I don’t even know what more is there to say about this it’s simply one of the coolest movies ever made with some of the best shootouts put to celluloid. So I’ll say this, plenty others have already pointed out the unique use of squibs in this and I completely agree. Every burst of blood looks like a literal puff of thick, red smoke that’s somehow not computer generated but all done practically. It’s the coolest looking thing and makes the already graceful violence borderline poetic. Never seen it done like that before or since. Also, just like in The Mission, absolutely love the chemistry and most importantly, the mischief between these characters here. I wish western filmmakers, fucking champions…
Review by Tao A ★★★★½ 15

One of the coolest movies I've ever seen.
A town with countless hitmen, one prostitute, one back alley doctor, two cops, and not a single civilian. The whole thing has a very spaghetti western feel to it, so much so that if they were to remake this as a western, and by god I hope they don't, they wouldn't have to change a single thing.
Besides, and this is what separates this movie from anything else in the genre: No one stages a scene and moves the camera like Johnnie motherfucking To.
Review by Diogo Serafim ★★★★½ 2

Heavy tissue flying, old friends dodging bullets. Just let your body flow with the images and dance to the movement, let your soul be carried by all the muted love that strings these incredible setpieces together. To’s dramatic patience, action embellishment and austere friendship dynamics are deeply heartfelt, while the comic touches and heavily stylized structure render it all so ravaging. Coolest western ever made.
Review by Joe ★★★★½

Red Bull Gives You Wings
To's western, essentially a series of tense stand-offs and stylish shootouts leading to the inevitable conclusion, have patience, it takes more than an hour for the titular exile to begin. If you showed this movie to a little kid who didn't know any better they would think that human beings were filled with red clouds instead of liquid blood.
Review by 🌻 lindsay 🌻 ★★★½ 1

what’s better than this? just guys bein dudes. just dudes bein gangsters. just gangsters loving each other 🥺
Review by Shea Gallagher ★★★★★

Johnnie To is a magician and this is a perfect film. Absolutely walloped me.
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★½ 6

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
-Galatians 6:7
And so, To not only consolidates himself as the spiritual successor of John Woo, more aesthetically restrained but more poetically flourished, but also as a serious artist where violence plays a key role in fleshing out relatable characters regardless of their moral inclinations. This is the point in the director's filmography where the violence becomes both beautiful and tragic as ballet, and bullets as dance numbers, everything choreographed under a plot regarding the past rising up from hell and reaching the present to charge the bills. The camera explores the attrezzos omnisciently like a rocking cradle, constantly moving sideways, freezing the…
Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★

Johnnie To out did himself with this masterful gun play ballet! The dark humor combined with heavy theme's of brotherhood and loyalty, the stylized, gangster on gangster violence equals pure movie magic!
Something you don't often see in gangster films... the 5 actors had a strong chemistry between them that elevated the film to a whole new level and gave a deeper more meaningful sense of brotherhood that the 5 characters had between them! It was heart warming!
Don't get me wrong this was a magnificently violent and bloody affair that unfolded onscreen but the film had these wonderfully complex layers that added so much more depth and richness to a film that had already delivered one hell of a…

Recent reviews

Review by phishyphood49 ★★★½

Hell yeah dudes
Review by princeto ★★★★★

去邊呀？是但啦
Review by Koen ★★★★½

just dudes being dudes in macau
*sips cg red bull*
Review by Bjorn ★★★½

There's a great Takeshi Kitano movie in here somewhere.
Review by James Lau ★★½

Great cinematography, love Johnny To's wide compositions, I just didn't connect w the characters or story at alllll lol. All style, no substance to me.
Also, that redbull can volley... Why? Lol. Some moments like this just made me laugh for the wrong reason, this film plays these moments so seriously to create the image of these cool guys, it doesn't work for meeee
Review by Richard Bevan ★★★★★

Excellent, one of Johnny To's best.
Review by Jake ★★★★

brotherhood. guys doing cool shit. ice cold.
Review by AleOsso ★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

One of the coolest action movies ever made.
The scene in which Wo dies is sensational.
Review by Dio ★★★★★

I don't think there's a better dudes rock moment anywhere than two assassins helping their target (and friend) move in furniture and have dinner together after trying to kill him.
Review by hunter ★★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Sobrang ganda
Review by mars2027 ★★★★★

You did it again you fucking genius Johnnie To
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★

74
Brotherhood as structure. Precisely mannered by Johnnie To, Exiled opens up the space for tension between comradery and business - the pleasures and pressures of masculine codes. The shoot-outs glow with puffy blood clouds and intimate glances. Has one of the greatest opening scenes.