High-Octane
Summary
Anti-Drug Operation has a wonderfully brisk runtime of 71 minutes and there is plenty of action; the ending is a little rushed and a few more scenes with the brothers together would have been cool, but this is still a fun action movie and an easy watch.
Plot: Follows a narcotic cop as he sets off on a daring mission to crush a drug ring and brings the criminals to justice.
Review: Anti-Drug Operation isn’t exactly the catchiest movie title of all time, but this is still an entertaining actioner with a run time of 70 minutes! That’s not a typo, 70!! It is as you’d expect incredibly well-paced and proof that you don’t need a runtime of nearly 3 hours to tell a decent story.
There is practically constant action with fight scenes, shoot-outs and some cracking explosions too. The story is about two brothers who were very close as youngsters, but got separated after witnessing their mother getting killed, so they end up on opposite sides of the law many years later.
Bin Li plays cop Lin Feng while Feng Lang plays his criminal brother Lin Lang. My biggest complaint about the film is that this is one of the few cases where it could have been a little longer just to give us some more scenes of conflict between the siblings. It also ends too abruptly, and we don’t know what actually happens to them both after the final showdown. Does Lin end up in jail? Does he go free? We never know, so even just a few more minutes would have helped.
Either way, I was still engaged and hated the main villain Uncle Qiao (He Yongsheng) despite not having a huge role.
Some of the fight scenes use some wirework but not too much; there are still some great stunts and this is an easy watch.
Overall, Anti-Drug Operation has a gloriously brief runtime but still manages to pack in tons of action and a decent villain. If anything it could have been a little longer especially the end to find out the fates of both brothers.