Heeere's Johnnie and Johnny! Yes, the man who put style into action and came up with action-style, Johnnie To recruits anther Johnny; that which is hailed as the "Elvis of France" in his native country, Johnny Hallyday who is the centre piece for another ode to killers, well killing killers.  So you’ve watched 'The Mission' and 'Exiled', and are wondering if 'Vengeance' lives up to those exceptional films? Well let’s talk story…

Johnny Hallyday plays French chef Costello who arrives in Macau after a team of hitmen (Eddie Cheung, Felix Wong, Ng Ting-Yip) shoot his daughter Irene (Sylvie Testud), her Chinese husband, and their two sons. However, Irene survives the hit and asks Costello to avenge her family.  Costello recruits the help of three hitman who are Kwai (Anthony Wong), Chu (Gordon Lam), and Fay Lok (Lam Suet), after stumbling onto a hit for their mobster boss George Fung (Simon Yam). He offers them money and a restaurant in Paris to help him take revenge, and they gladly oblige.

SPOILER ALERT: Costello has a bullet lodged in his brain and this adds to the plot as his memory starts to go and he has to remember the hitmen he has hired by writing their names on pictures of them.  Although this is told early on in the story, it's never really expanded upon but does have a dramatic effect on the finale of the film when trying to recognise the big boss (Simon Yam) who ordered the hit.

There is little in the way of twists and turns here, and what you see is what you get from a story point of view, but what you do get is the usual high calibre gunplay action we come to expect from To’s action sequences.  It's definitely up there with 'The Mission' and 'Exiled', and the action just hits you in the face and then comes back round for another smack, it really oozes beauty.  Johnny Hallyday does a fair job, although he's acted off the screen by those around him, maybe due to large portions being filmed in English, but you kind of warm to him as the film progresses and it needed that rugged kind of look for the role.

So should you watch 'Vengeance'? Well if you love the gunplay genre then you'll love this as it's just so amazing to look at, but the story does take a backseat so the action can be given centre stage.  Personally, I would love Johnnie To to do more of these kinds of movies and it proves that once again I'll be waiting with baited breath for more from Johnnie To so I can once again use the immortal line “Heeere’s Johnnie”.