Verdict
Summary
Despite a slow first half Extraordinary Mission picks up and climaxes with an epic 25 minute shoot-out that is sure to satisfy genre fans.
Plot: Police officer Lin Kai receives an assignment to infiltrate a drug cartel called Twin Eagles. His operation starts to spiral out of control when he slowly but unwillingly becomes an addict while trying to gain the leader’s trust.
Review: First of all let me just say I really miss the half star rating system from the old site; I see this as a 3.5 star movie but as I can’t do that anymore then I’m giving it a solid 4 as it really is a very entertaining (but flawed) undercover cop movie. On the surface Extraordinary Mission seems like pretty generic stuff and for the most part it is but the story goes in some surprising directions climaxing essentially in a 25 minute shoot-out.
There are no fight scenes in this movie so if you’re looking for that then you’ll be disappointed but the first half is really more of a tense thriller as Lin Kai (Xuan Huang) gets in deep undercover and tries to get close with some nasty drug dealer types. We get a few flashbacks showing that his mother was a heroin addict who dies of an overdose when he was young but aside from that we never really to know all that much about him. He’s a cop that goes undercover to take down bad guys and frankly that’s all we need to know.
Despite being a little slow in the first half the performances from the cast are excellent and as I mentioned it does get rather tense at times; I thought when Lin Kai became an addict it was resolved a little too quickly and could have taken the story in a more interesting direction.
Yihong Duan plays the villain Eagle however, he is not a total monster and is driven by grief after his wife was killed ten years earlier by an undercover cop. He is still a nasty piece of work though so it’s not like you’re rooting for him to win.
Some supporting characters are a little under developed like Eagle’s “daughter” who just seems to be there for no reason.
The cinematography is quite stunning at times and the action mostly goes for realism (despite several CG explosions) with some impressive and brutal looking stunts.
Overall, Extraordinary Mission is a massively entertaining undercover cop movie with an action-packed finale that more than makes up for a slow first act; if I were honest though I would check out Operation Mekong instead as it had a similar story but more hardcore action.
