When gangsters shoot a French woman in her Macau home after murdering her husband and kids, she calls her father for help, a retired assassin turned chef. While investigating Macau’s underworld, he meets three hitmen, whom he hires to lead him through the particulars of the local triads.

In the role of a vengeful father, French icon Johnny Hallyday is a quiet but raging fire, undermining the cold and calculating ways of merciless gangsters. Melancholy makes way for cathartic violence as Johnnie To’s operatic yet controlled style allows for both virtuosic action and ardent emotion.