EASTERN PROMISES is dedicated to showcasing the best of East Asian cinemas, from beloved classics to forgotten gems.

The films of Michael Mann have always distilled the labour of hardened men down to the most base element. In MIAMI VICE, Mann strips the police procedural down until we are left with pure emotion. A slow meditation on charisma and coolness, where Mann’s digital cinematography is pushed to an hitherto unexplored realm of visceral beauty—almost transcendent; it is the most expensive art film ever made. Somebody in Toronto needed to do it, so here’s Michael Mann’s MIAMI VICE (2006).

A case involving drug lords and murder in South Florida takes a personal turn for undercover detectives Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx). Unorthodox Crockett gets involved romantically with the Chinese-Cuban wife of a trafficker of arms and drugs (Gong Li), while Tubbs deals with an assault on those he loves.

Theatrical cut.

(Courtesy of Universal)