'EXILED' HAS A SURE SHOT AT BOX OFFICE BATTLE OF THE BULLETS.

Byline: BOB STRAUSS

>FILM CRITIC

They say that comparisons are odious. But that's never stopped me, especially when a ballistic ballet with true art and soul like "Exiled" comes out the same day as that cynical celebration of death-dealing indulgence, "Shoot 'Em Up."

They bear significant similarities. And yes, indulgence is one of them. But the prolific Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To's approach is a truly cinematic wallow, as concerned with lighting gradations as it is with shell trajectories. It's humane, too; pain and hope and deep personal connections inform every shot. A guns-and-baby motif, weirdly, runs through both movies, but "Exiled" has a grip on the real implications of such imagery, while it's just some loony fantasy outrage in "Shoot 'Em Up."

To is going to get a lot of comparisons, some inevitably negative, to Sergio Leone for this movie. But while the spaghetti Western maestro's influence is unmistakable in "Exiled's" long-wait takes, cigar-chomping gunslingers and Mexican standoff compositions, To quickly incorporates all that into his own urban, kinetic and bloodily beautiful view of the underworld.

And while it probably means little to Western viewers, setting "Exiled" in Macao on the eve of its return to Chinese control in 1998 makes for a refreshingly different visual experience from most Hong Kong crime films. The former Portuguese colony is rich with Iberian architectural flourishes; watching supercool Triad hitmen shoot it out on cobblestoned streets, under gaslamp-shaped streetlights and between wrought-iron fences adds an extra dimension of, well, charm, to the already immaculately choreographed violence.

As an organized crime lord from the bigger British colony tries to muscle in on the action across the bay, two of his soldiers are dispatched to kill a long-gone errant comrade who's hiding out in Macao with his wife and infant son. Trouble is, another pair of hitmen have vowed to protect their old colleague. After a lot of waiting and some fabulous shooting, the five men agree that, since they were childhood friends, the least they can do is pull off a robbery together that will ensure the future widow and her little boy's financial comfort. Things get really complicated, existential and doomy from there.

"Exiled's" macho posturing, along with satire thereof (terrible things happen to bad men's genitals, but it doesn't seem to stop them) is as knowing as it gets.

The Hong Kong film industry is a shadow of what it was before the colonial handover, but To appears to be its reigning master of both quality and quantity. He's directed nine movies in the past four years alone, including such acclaimed works as "Election" and its sequel, "Breaking News" and "Running on Karma." He gets a little sloppy now and then; slo-mo shots aren't just indulged but abused here. And I don't recall cell phones and Red Bull having quite the prominence nine years ago that "Exiled" implies. But overall, To is doing exquisite and exciting work at a mind-boggling rate.

Bob Strauss [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

EXILED - Three and one half stars

>R: violence, sex, nudity, medical grossness, children in jeopardy.

>Starring: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Nick Cheung, Josie Ho, Simon Yam.

>Director: Johnnie To.

>Running time: 1 hr. 53 min.

>Playing: Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

>In a nutshell: This month's real shoot-'em-up is this stylish and soulful production about opposing teams of Hong Kong hitmen alternately tracking down and protecting a wayward comrade in Macao. In Cantonese with English subtitles.