JOHN Woo long ago abandoned Hong Kong action for Hollywood schlock, but fellow countryman Johnnie To keeps on keeping on.

To’s latest, “Exiled” – set in the Portuguese colony Macao in 1998, shortly before it was handed over to mainland China – opens with a tip of the hat to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns as two groups of hitmen wait at the home of a mobster who has been marked for death.

These guys might be killers, but they have heart. They agree to help the doomed man pull off one last job – a gold robbery – so he can provide for his wife and newborn child. This scenario allows To to show off his action mastery, as bodies fall and blood flows nonstop.

To throws in pitch-black humor, including a confrontation at a mob doctor’s makeshift surgery and a hooker who hangs out at a hotel waiting for customers. The film ends with a slow-mo shootout that recalls Sam Peckinpah.

“Exiled” is a grabber from start to finish that should win new fans for cult-favorite To.

EXILED ***

In Cantonese, with English subtitles. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (extreme violence). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika.