where the cop tortures the guy with needles. Slowly walking around the room before grabbing another set. He circles, revels and revels in the violence here exactly 4 times.
I want to like Refen. I believe he's really talented, but also his own worst enemy when he chooses to make a film in this style. Refen's speciality is the quick, loud surprise. It's evident in the Pawn Shop scene in Drive and here at the machine gun attack. There's a moment where the cop drops a guy and it's just BAM!-Down!-Done!. That's followed by a blast that goes through some glass. Refen loves the slow motion, but he brings an action scene to life like few others when his foot is on the gas.
I didn't miss that there's a lot more here than meets the eye initially. Refen's script puts revenge through the looking glass, and how it looks on the other side is fairly interesting. It's different on that level, and it's almost good for being different. However, in the end we have a 20 minute story stretched to 90 minutes. I think he might be going for Leone style, but he never sustains any mood beyond the gloss.
He is not reveling in the violence. He is torturing a guy for information. Yes, the justice system sometimes tortures people to get information. But Refn isn't reveling in the violence here because there is a point. This is Chang's moral code. This is how far he goes. The slow motion blood splatters in Drive is Refn DEFINITELY reveling in the violence.
The rest I can't argue with except for bringing up other films and showing how contradictory statements like "a 20 minute story stretched into 90 minutes" which I can't even begin to fathom how odd of a statement that is. You could describe most films to be like that, but I digress. As for mood, I totally felt it, it reminded me much of No Country for Old Men, a film that I feel that this is a much better comparison to than Drive. There is just so much dread, so much Biblical allusions in this film that I can't help but find it endlessly fascinating.