Once upon a time in the East. 
The cigars smoked by some of Exiled’s characters and Simon YAM’s overacting tell us quickly what Exiled is all about: posing. For Johnnie TO, it’s all a matter of pretext: pretext for reuniting on the Big Screen the cast of his classic The Mission, pretext for giving major festivals (the signature of the auteur Johnnie TO) and HK Cinema fans (gunfight, elegant stylization, actors with charisma and cool attitude) what they want, pretext for a tribute to Johnnie TO’s masters (LEONE, PECKINPAH) and peers (John WOO), pretext for quoting TO’s previous movies. TO doesn’t care about making a follow up to The Mission and think spectators don’t either. Maybe he’s right…Too bad the movie weakens at the end due to repetitive humour before an excellent ironic end. Finally, Exiled is just style, cool attitude and a tribute paid to some of the most revered genre directors. But it does it better than almost everyone else in Asia today.
