Fantastic Fest XX Review: In ROAD TO VENDETTA, A Killer Sino-Japanese Action Flick

Fantastic Fest turned things up a little more this year with a few extra doses of the stuff I particularly enjoy covering. To this, little did I know that this would be my second time covering something involving the work of action director extraordinaire Koichi Sakamoto who gets to ply his trade now in a work from director Njo Kui Ying.

Enter Road To Vendetta, in which Number 4 (Jeffrey Ngai), a blonde-haired, proficient killer in Hong Kong working for a pan-Asian assassin organization, is suddenly assigned to a hit-job in Japan. As it turns out though, Number 4, upon the job’s completion, turns out to be only of three targets according to the client who emerges as Kumo (Sara Minami), a hapless and broke, albeit vengeful young woman literally way in over her head.

With no money and stuck in it for the long haul with Number 4 by her side, the two have three days to come up with the fifty-million yen required to pay Number 4’s organization, and the clock is ticking. In hopes of raising the money themselves, Road To Vendetta chronicles our protagonists amid their tenacious efforts to train Kumo at handling a firearm to raid the coffers of the other three targets, all members of a Yakuza gang whose own political turmoil serves to factor in the odds.

What follows is consequential tale of revenge, brought about by blood, bullets, and betrayal, and a testament of friendship and honor when Number 4 realizes what’s really at stake. With his own life and Kumo’s freedom on the line, can he save her from the clutches of an unforgiving underworld? Or will its twisted figureheads and the true nature of his involvement in the organization be their undoing?

Ngai’s performance will be comforting to plenty of action fans familiar with numbed, apathetic killer characters who forge a slow and steady path to growth, developing a conscience in the process; It’s not much of a stretch to compare this to Jang Hyuk’s performance in Choi Jae-hoon’s The Killer and both warrant their own measures of cool. Our hero carries himself aplenty in Road To Vendetta with varying dimensions to his role that find bearing with Minami’s character well along the way. It’s not until later in the second half that those extra layers are peeled back just a tad further, exploring more back story as the impetus to later avowals that bring our protagonist full circle.

Minami is an absolute handful as Kumo, out to avenge a loved one murdered at the hands of our four deadly Yakuza bosses, played by Yuya Endo, Eriku Yoza, Tomohiro Waki, and So Kaku. The film’s youngest co-star is Yurito Mori who plays Kumo’s rambunctious and precocious friend who she adresses fondly as Boss. Both characters work hand-in-hand with each other in their day-to-day ramblings, and it’s only just until this latest impasse with both the Yakuza, and the organization to whom Kumo is indebted, that they find common ground in having Number 4 in close range as opposed to running from him at first.

The most standout aspect of Road To Vendetta is the palatable writing done by the film’s team comprised of Njo, along with co-scribes Mani Man Pui Heng and Li Shuk Ming. The script has it that both characters are completely unable to understand one another unless they can use a mobile device to translate what they’re saying to each other. As the movie progresses and the stakes increase, the language barrier allays over time to a point where both characters are feeding instinctly off of one another. The script even plays off one homonym in which a phrase in Cantonese gets easily mistaken as the pronunciation of a Japanese dish, a plot tool used later as a means of levity.

The action heats up something fierce, and it does so just as you think the film reached its most major climatic moment, preambling the film’s more heightened, emotional fallout in which our hero is finally driven to the resolve he needs to break out of his cycle of violence. Fans of Lee Jong-beom might get the vibe here, and with a story that ends as ominously and sadly as it does buoyantly.

Sakamoto’s action choreography comes packaged with conventional, slick gun fu moments and bloody kills. Ngai performs well up to par for the lead role as an elite killer who can hold his own soon as he’s surrounded by the head of the Japan HQ of his organization, Sonjya (Naoto Takenaka), clashing with his men at a Buddhist temple where he at once believes Kumo is being held. There’s one sword sequence that takes its cues from films like 300 and Ninja Assassin but without as many of the zoom-ins, but with enough slow-mo edits that the scene is still entertaining regardless of how cliché it may feel.

Steeped in neon allure for most of its nighttime visuals, Njo’s Road To Vendetta is an action thriller befitting of our time. If you enjoy quirky assassin vehicles with oddball pairings, kinetic and bloody action design and a heartwarming send-off, Road To Vendetta will lead you right where you need to be.

Road To Vendetta enjoyed its World Premiere for the twentieth edition of Fantastic Fest.