Where most movies conform to a traditional three-act structure, Exiled, a new thriller from Hong Kong action maestro Johnnie To, is formed as a series of five shoot-outs involving multiple gunslingers, writes Michael Dwyer

To pays explicit, reverential homage to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone in Exiled. The setting is Macau in 1998, a year before the Portuguese island colony is to be handed over to China. Acutely aware that their glory days are numbered, the criminal population sets about settling some old scores.

The movie opens on a day of reckoning for Wo (Nick Cheung), who has attempted to go straight and settle down with his wife Jin and their first baby.

Woe is Wo, who made the mistake of merely wounding venomous Boss Fay in an assassination attempt. No sooner have two killers arrived to exact retribution but two protectors turn up at his home. There is a slow standoff, a dramatic shoot- out, and then they all sit down together for dinner. The five men have been friends from childhood and started out in the same gang.

Before vengeance can be exacted, there is the allure that is the genre convention of One Last Job: an ambush on Buddha Mountain to steal a shipment of gold destined as a bribe for corrupt government officials.

Atmospherically enhanced by Guy Zerafa's shimmering, Morricone-influenced score, To's moody, slow-burning movie erupts into violence for the precisely choreographed shoot- outs, the most imaginative set in the makeshift operating theatre of a greedy underground doctor. Dialogue is minimal and often so playful it feels improvised, as this elegantly crafted stylistic exercise builds towards a bloody, balletic climax.