Moscow Mission (2023)

Moscow Mission is a rather long but nonetheless watchable Chinese crime action drama thriller. Loosely based on fact and set way back in the 1993, it crams a lot of well executed action, thrills and drama into its 2+ hour time frame. This is by no means a boring film but I did feel, it could have been shorter and still remained, very watchable. In summary, tons of action, far from boring but perhaps a little overly long,

A fairly well organised and well executed robbery on the Trans-Siberian railway embarrasses and infuriates the Chinese authorities and so they assemble a team of crack police investigators to work with their Russian counterparts to track down and apprehend these brutal felons. Soon, their investigations are immersing them in a Moscow underworld that is ruthless and sophisticated - and they soon encounter their quarry who now have a far bigger target in mind - one that will imperil anyone who tries to stand in their way. What's interesting here, is that we know pretty much from the start who the protagonists are and so we can follow both as one plots and schemes and the other tries to capture them. The lead acting (especially from Andy Lau) is maybe not the best, but the writing and the direction from Herman Yau deliver an action adventure film that is easily as good as the recently released "Expend4bles" effort. There are plenty of action scenarios, car chases, gun-fights and the denouement reminded me a little of "The Italian Job" meets "Mission: Impossible". Maybe a little long, but it doesn't hang about and I quite enjoyed it.