Another month, another Herman Yau. Moscow Mission <莫斯科行动> marks his fourth directorial effort this year after The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell <掃毒3: 人在天涯>, Death Notice <暗殺風暴> and Raid on the Lethal Zone <绝地追击>.
In this big-budget Moscow Mission <莫斯科行动>, Yau directs Chen Daming’s screenplay, which is inspired by the notorious 1993 armed robbery aboard the K3/4 train from Beijing to Moscow. The movie gets off to a promising start as we see a small group of robbers orchestrate a few heists on the train led by Miao Qingshan a.k.a. “D” (Huang Xuan) with the help of others, namely Miao Ziwan (Gu Jiacheng) and his sexy girlfriend, Li Suzhen a.k.a. Zhenzhen (Janice Man).
The train robbery prompted law enforcement in China — the People’s Public Security — to set up a special task force with Captain Cui (Zhang Hanyu) in charge of the cross-border investigation. Together with his team members, Sun Jiandong (Bai Narisu) and Gang (Temur Manisashvili), they arrive in Moscow disguised as businessmen to collect debts. Their primary mission is to apprehend Miao Qingshan and his gang and deport them back to China.
Of course, things get complicated with the involvement of an expat from Guangdong named “Vasily” (Andy Lau). Apparently, he is working with Miao to stage a casino heist from Moscow’s underground tunnel system. The latter allows Yau to stage one of the major action set pieces in Moscow Mission <莫斯科行动>: an elaborate pursuit between Cui’s team and the robbers attempting to flee the police in dirt bikes.
But here lies the problem because you have to sit through a series of exposition dumps and haphazard storytelling before you get to that good part. Not to mention it’s hard to ignore the story’s too-good-to-be-true sanitised depiction of Chinese and Russian authorities, where language barriers, red tape and cultural differences are practically non-existent.
Most of the characters here, in the meantime, are one-dimensional. Despite the movie promoting Andy Lau a lot in the marketing campaign, he’s pretty much playing a supporting role since Zhang Hanyu is the one leading the cast. Lau’s usual charisma isn’t doing him much of a favour this time around. I hate to say this but his acting is surprisingly bland, even when the story attempts to add some dramatic stakes revolving around his little daughter. It doesn’t help either when the stakes make me feel as if it was shoehorned into the story for the sake of Lau to show off his emotive acting skills.
Zhang Hanyu plays the same old stoic character as Captain Cui while Janice Man, who had a great year in Lost in the Stars <消失的她>, is sadly undermined as Zhenzhen and she clearly deserves better than this. Huang Xuan, who plays the main antagonist in this movie, fails to leave much of an impression as Miao Qingshan.
Moscow Mission <莫斯科行动> also suffers from erratic pacing, particularly in the saggy midsection. Still, the movie excels in the action department and this is what Yau does best, albeit with some hiccups on the questionable CGI. The opening train heist and the underground tunnel pursuit aside, Yau showcased his flair for several other thrilling action moments, namely the nighttime car chase and the fighter jet scene. If only Yau could display the same enthusiasm in the storytelling and character development, Moscow Mission <莫斯科行动> wouldn’t have resulted in a huge, missed opportunity.
ScreenHK 