Motorway (BLU-RAY)

This radically pared back action film transforms driving into an intensely existential test in the tradition of Walter Hill’s The Driver and Nicolas Refn Winding’s Drive. Abstract, yet at the same time viscerally exciting, Soi Cheang provides all the things we have come to love in Milkyway films: crisp, neo-noir nighttime images, location shooting right in the middle of Hong Kong, and an intense concentration on character as it is explodes into deeply satisfying genre action. Cheung (Shawn Yue Man-lok) is a hot-headed young cop who lives to drive. Partnered with old hand and mentor Fung (Anthony Wong Chau-sang) he must learn control and focus when he goes up against a legendary getaway driver from the mainland (Guo Xiaodong). They say that when the rubber hits the road you find out your true worth, and here is the proof of that in spades. Produced by Johnnie To, Motorway carried off Best Film and Best Director awards from the Hong Kong Film Critics’ Society in 2013. Film Comment described it as “unfiltered cinematic pleasure.”