War (part 1)

Hi Aki,

A couple nights ago I watched War which stars Jason Statham and Jet Li. Statham basically plays a cop in San Francisco. Jet Li plays a professional assassin who is playing the Yakuza against the triads to start a war. And Statham is obsessed with this ‘Rogue’ assassin because ‘Rogue’ killed Statham’s partner (John Lone) 3 years ago.

Nobody has ever seen Rogue, there are no pictures of him.

He has had plastic surgery several times, changing his face.

He was trained by the CIA but years ago he rebelled against them and went to serve the Yakuza (one specific clan) as an assassin.

He is known only by the very particular bullets he uses (yeah, right!).

Statham is one of those tough cops who know it all, can speak Japanese at least, maybe Mandarin as well. He lives for his job, which caused his wife to divorce him years ago, shortly after his partner was killed, with all his family, by Rogue (after a raid they show as the movie prologue, Statham and Lone break into a smuggling operation where Rogue is killing people, a fact Statham and Lone learn when they find the special spent cartridges only Rogue uses, on the floor. Lone manages to shoot Rogue in the face, Rogue falls into the water of San Francisco bay, presumed drowned, though no body is found. A few days later, Statham is driving to Lone’s cabin in the hills for barbecue, when Rogue breaks into Lone’s house, shoots Lone in the face, and then shoots Lone’s wife and kid in front of him. By the time Statham arrives, the house is a burned down, smoking ruin, the police and fire department are there, only bones of the bodies – but Statham does find one of the special bullet cartridges there.

It’s suggested that this even tore up even Statham, leading to his wife divorcing him.

Now Rogue is back, and he seems to be playing Statham against the Yakuza, the Yakuza and triad against each other.

The climax comes when Rogue kills the triad boss, but lets his wife (improbably, a Latina!) and little girl go, contrary to the orders of the Yakuza leader. The Yakuza leader learns of this betrayal, and orders Rogue killed – but nobody can kill Jet Li. Even when the Yakuza boss wounds him horribly, Rogue has the upper hand, and is about to kill the Yakuza. ‘Why are you doing this? Why?’

Rogue answers, ‘Because 3 years ago, you ordered a hit.’

‘I order many hits!’

‘This one … was different!!!’

So flashback: we learn that after Rogue killed Lone’s wife and daughter, Lone got free, turned the tables, killed Rogue.

In the three years since, Lone has masqueraded as Rogue, having plastic surgery to look like what Rogue would have looked like (remember both of them have just been shot in the face). And all this time he has worked to create this war and lure the Yakuza boss to San Francisco (the clan boss of this Yakuza group has always stayed in Tokyo for some reason too complicated to get into. And for some reason Lone finds it easier to engineer this 3-year campaign to set triad against Yakuza instead of doing what you or I would do and buying a plane ticket to Tokyo!!!)

In response, the Yakuza guy tells Rogue/Lone: it was your partner. He was working for me. he’s the one who’s really responsible!

Cut to Statham in the park, looking mournful. He is not only the kind of cop who knows the underworld, he’s smart to boot: he has been asking, ‘Why would Rogue start a war between the triads and Yakuza?’ Now, it seems, he has his answer: it seems as though he knows who ‘Rogue’ really is.

The showdown is all set up, when…

…when the cable box changed channels! We have the recorder set to record a comedy show every Thursday night at 9.30.

So I didn’t see the end!!!

Now, how does it end? This is another puzzle like Gossip (remember that one?).

We know everything going up to the climax. It looks like the toughest cop is up against the toughest bad guy (who is not a bad guy after all, but who has done horrible things, though only to criminals, for revenge).

Who will win?

• Will both survive and make peace? (No – not in a violent movie like this!)
• Will both die? (maybe, but isn’t that a downer?)
• Will Statham defeat Jet Li /Lone and find some sort of redemption? Does he have some sort of explanation for what he did? Something that Lone/Jet Li might forgive? (I don’t know about this one. It really doesn’t look like anybody could beat Jet Li, but he’s had one arm just about hacked off by the Yakuza boss, so he’s not 100 percent here)
• Will Jet Li / Lone defeat and kill Statham? But then what’s left for Lone? This is the sort of character arc that ends only in death.

(This is how you tell about that: if along the path of vengeance the guy meets a girl, or a child, or an animal – something to save, something to give him a personal relationship, a reason to live – then he can live on after achieving vengeance. But if he finds nobody, then he will die, always, 100 percent of the time. The only people who fit this bill are the triad widow and child. But Jet Li has had no real relationship to them; he is his usual cold, distant self with the little girl.)

So I don’t see how Jet Li can live at the end of this.

I don’t see how Statham can survive either.

What’s your prediction, if you didn’t see it yet? I got to record the end tonight, and I’ll watch it first thing tomorrow morning.

I really don’t know what I predict. Statham has to pay for what he did. Lone has nothing to live for. And yet I don’t see them both dead and the audience looking at two corpses when the credits roll, do you?

Hey, I know your solution! They start kissing in the middle of fighting, and end up going to some state that allows gay marriage!

Haha!

I had another thought as I was walking home: here’s how I would do it.

Big fight between Statham and Jet Li. Reveal that Rogue is Lone.

Statham explains. Wife sick, kid with cancer – something that needed money and the family required he sell out.

Jet Li exacts revenge. But he leaves Statham alive – just maybe shoots him in the face.

Then a sniper Statham’s pal shoots Jet Li. Jet Li falls into the bay just like Rogue did (all this should happen on the scene of the prologue). They are sure Jet Li is dead, but no body is found.

Statham, wounded, leaves flowers on the grave of Lone/wife/child and walks, limps, away.

– this makes Statham pay, makes Jet Li pay, but leaves both men, potentially, alive so we can have War 2 sequel.

I will tell you what really happened when I hear your prediction.

(5 May 2009)