Film

V

Name: V
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 2026
Cast: Zhu Yilong, Tan Jianci, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Michelle Wai Si-Nga, Kara Wai Ying-hung

A sprawling Hong Kong crime epic set in the lawless early 1990s, following a working-class man's meteoric rise through robbery and power plays alongside a flight attendant, while dual police forces close in. Operatic, violent, morally tangled—a film that moves like a checkered flag through the city's underworld.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like crime epics built on ambition and corruption, where a desperate man's rise slowly curdles into obsession and the city itself feels like a character.

Skip it if you want a lean, fast-moving caper, since this runs well past two and a half hours and lingers on mood and power games more than the job itself.

What it asks of you: Settle in for close to three hours of slow-building tension, with long patient scenes and a grimy early-nineties texture that rewards sustained attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

A Better Tomorrow1986

John Woo's kinetic masterpiece about honour and betrayal among criminals in Hong Kong. The gunfights are balletic, the emotional core is real, and it essentially invented the modern action film.

But The subtitles demand attention, and some of the fashion choices have aged into comedy. It's also genuinely slow in places.

Infernal Affairs2002

A mole thriller with the moral clarity of mud—a cop embedded with gangsters, a gangster embedded with cops, neither knowing which way is up. Tense, clever, and the ending doesn't cheat you.

But The remake (The Departed) exists and is slick. This one takes time to build its paranoia, which pays off but requires patience.

City on Fire1987

Chow Yun-fat as a cop playing both sides while everything burns around him. It's raw, chaotic, and feels like watching a real city collapse into violence rather than a plot being executed.

But The pacing is deliberate in ways modern audiences find glacial. Some scenes exist mainly to establish mood, which is wonderful or tedious depending on your mood.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from V

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Thief1981

Both trace the arc of a desperate man whose one success becomes an addiction to power. Both understand that the real crime is the personality transformation that follows, not the theft itself.

Michael Mann's clinical masterpiece about a professional thief rebuilding his life, then losing it to ambition and connection. It's the spiritual ancestor of every crime film about men choosing the wrong thing—and Mann shoots it with such cold beauty you almost understand why they do.

But It's slow, genuinely slow, and the emotional beats are subtle enough to miss if you're not watching closely. Also, the synthesizer score is distinctly 1981 in ways that can feel dated.

The Godfather1972

The bible for crime epics about men who wanted one thing and got destroyed by their ambition instead. If you want to understand why V exists, this is where the template was carved.

But Three and a half hours. If you've somehow missed it, that's a lot of cinema to commit to, even if it's undeniably great.

Chungking Express1994

Wong Kar-wai's neon-soaked Hong Kong romance that captures the city's energy and longing in two interlocking stories. Visually ravishing and genuinely moving, it's cinema as mood rather than plot.

But The narrative is deliberately fragmented and dreamlike. If you need a story that lands cleanly, this will frustrate you.

Election2005

A taut Triad power struggle told in sharp, efficient scenes. Andrew Lau builds genuine tension from political mechanics and shows how power corrupts everyone equally.

But It's deliberately unglamorous and low-key for a crime film. There's no cathartic violence, just the slow grinding of systems.

Internal Affairs1990

Andy Lau and Richard Gere in a perfectly calibrated thriller about a cop investigating corruption, discovering it goes higher than he dared imagine. The paranoia is real and contagious.

But It predates modern editing rhythms—scenes breathe in ways that feel slack if you're used to faster pacing. Also, it's really about systems, not spectacle.

Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong2021

A look at the underworld in transition, balancing nostalgia against the brutality that nostalgia often whitewashes. It captures the specific texture of that era without sentimentalizing it.

But It's quieter and more reflective than you'd expect from a crime film. If you're after propulsive action, this meditates instead.

Long Day's Journey Into Night2018

A three-hour immersion in memory, regret, and urban decay. Bi Gan's camera moves like a ghost through a city, and the emotional devastation is staggering even as the plot remains elusive.

But This is experimental cinema that asks patience of viewers. It's about feeling rather than understanding, which either resonates deeply or feels like watching paint dry in 3D.

Memories of Murder2003

Both examine how a system designed to protect a city becomes complicit in destroying it. Both feature investigators working against their own machinery. Both are patient with their doom.

Bong Joon-ho's serial killer procedural set in 1980s South Korea—a ravaging film about institutional failure, the gap between the men hunting evil and actual justice, and corruption so total it poisons the people trying to stop it.

But It's brutally dark, featuring real sexual violence and police brutality. The ending offers no catharsis. It's also two and a half hours of mounting dread.

The White Storm2013

Both compress the full arc of a criminal life—rise, intoxication by power, the moment the system turns on you—into a portrait of a specific city at a specific time. Both treat Hong Kong as a character with its own demands.

A Triad crime film told from the kingpin's perspective—three drug lords, a decades-long friendship, and the moment everything comes apart. It's gorgeously shot, emotionally complex, and treats its criminals as men with real histories rather than plot devices.

But It's operatic to the point of melodrama, and if you don't buy into the sentimentality between the characters, you'll resent every minute. Also extremely violent.