Big Heat

One of Johnnie To's earlier films, this tale is more akin to the hard crime thriller of Martin Scorsese rather than To's recent "tongue-in- cheek" style. What we have here is brutal storytelling of blackmail, espionage, corruption, and violence all facing one struggling Hong Kong detective. Even by today's standards the violence is both shocking and disturbing to see. Some sequences may be over the top, and while out of place they are vastly entertaining. The plot of "a washed-up cop pulled back in for one last job" had been done to death even back in 1988, however Johnnie To added in some twists plus heavy suspense to make the material fresh. In my opinion the faults are the editing and lack of charisma from Waise Lee's character. The protagonist could have been more likable to better engage the audience, and the editing is dated with some awkward cuts and sped up/slowed down moments which don't blend well with the drama. Other than that the material hit home with me, and the all-out conclusion left me in awe. Keep in mind this is filled with winding clues and bloody confrontations, not an easy watch. -7/10

A fierce and fatalistic Hong Kong policier. As produced by Tsui Hark and co-directed by the great Johnny To, this gore-drenched neo noir is as far removed from a John Woo bullet ballet as possible. Unlike Woo's romantic notions of honor and loyalty in a morally bankrupt world, the vision here is bleaker, more unsparing. There are no beautifully choreographed dances of deaths, no heroic displays of bloodshed and brotherhood. The filmmakers pummel our violence-jaded sensibilities, rubbing our noses in the sundry ways a human being can be physically mangled or emotionally savaged. They're determined to make us feel the pain, and they succeed in spades. This one fricken hurts to watch.

The film is a Hong Kong travel agent's worst nightmare, a portrait of the city as a neon-lit charnel house. The protagonist is a stolid, world-weary police detective (Waise Lee), whose nerve-impaired shooting hand serves as the perfect symbol of this pitiless urban jungle-- it's beyond repair, as out of control as the landscape he inhabits. In a rare star turn, Lee (the memorable villain of Woo's "A Better Tomorrow" and "Bullet in the Head") is coolly persuasive at suggesting bottled torment; he makes reticence seem like a powerful emotion.

The crime story involving the pursuit of a Malaysian drug cartel is routine stuff, as is the inclusion of a clumsy rookie cop assigned as partner to Lee. But Hark and To invest these familiar tropes with a profoundly unsettling despair that gets under your skin and stays there.

The Big Heat doesn't just burn -- it scalds.

THE BIG HEAT is an impressive crime thriller, shot in the streets and urban spaces of Hong Kong and filled with chases, shootouts and fistfights right up until the final action climax. While it doesn't have the sheer spectacle of John Woo's HK crime films (THE KILLER, HARD-BOILED), it is consistently gripping and suspenseful and generally more believable than Woo's films (at least until the final over-the-top battle). Simple one-line-plot: four cops go after a businessman in league with smugglers after the lead cop's former partner is brutally murdered.

The romantic interests are expertly interspersed into the story so that they never detract from the action, but become a part of it. This is a no-nonsense film from beginning to end, with no fat and no waste. There are numerous set-pieces, such as a face-off in a hospital elevator shaft, that are so tightly shot and edited as to rank with similar scenes in the best Hollywood urban crime thrillers.

The stars include Waise Lee (A BULLET IN THE HEAD), as the lead cop on the case, and Joey Wang (A CHINESE GHOST STORY), as a nurse who is romanced by one of the cops. The actor playing Lee's partner is none other than Philip Kwok, a one-time kung fu star (one of the Five Venoms), who, in line with the film's more authentic action, doesn't get to do any kung fu, but instead gets to shoot, run, chase, brawl, and drive at high speeds.

I should point out that the film includes much brutal violence, including beatings, mutilation and gruesome deaths. It's not for the squeamish, but if you're a fan of gritty, down-and-dirty crime thrillers, this DVD is for you.

Written by Gordon Chan, director of Fist Of Legend and Thunderbolt, The Big Heat may be a little rough-around-the-edges, but it still stands strong as a fantastically gritty, violent, and fast-paced action thriller. Directed by Andrew Kam and Johnnie To, with the great Tsui Hark getting behind some scenes, uncredited, the film is brilliantly shot, in a way that only compliments the dark revenge plot, with its brutal tale of cops and robbers, screaming the style of a certain Ringo Lam, with only hints of light breaking through this raw, gore-filled, dark and exciting Hong Kong gem!

For me, the great Philip Kwok steals the show. Playing a cop on Lee's team, he could have carried this as the lead, bringing an explosive energy to his role and delivering one of the better performances in the film. After watching him in so may Shaw Brothers films recently, it was good to see him in a modern setting. But for Waise Lee, who had made an impression with his breakout role in the classic, A Better Tomorrow, only 2 years prior, The Big Heat helped take him to another level. Playing a cop with a spinal injury that affects his gun hand, Lee is advised to resign early. But when he gets word about the murder of his ex-partner, Lee delays his plans until he finds out who was behind the brutal killing. I would like to say that, if Chow Yun Fat had been in Lee's place, this film would be in everyone's collection much like his classics with Woo and Lam...

When I watch The Big Heat, I see Tsui Hark giving us a project inspired by his time on A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2. With John Woo taking a different approach to his stylised action thrillers, this gave Hark the chance to darken the tone even more, blending his dark humour with more ultra-violent, kinetic action. Working with Andrew Kam, the man behind Swordsman, Fatal Termination, and High Voltage with Donnie Yen - as well as the great Johnnie To who was still fresh as a film director (although had already been assisted on films such as Royal Warriors and Magnificent Warriors with Michelle Yeoh), producer and director Tsui Hark delivers an underrated classic that I say, deserves a place beside the legendary John Woo flicks.

Although leaning more towards that of a Ringo Lam film than the work of Woo, The Big Heat is packed with stunning cinematography that pulls you into the action, making for a tense viewing experience full of graphic gun fights and action, where limbs and heads are blown-off, and kids and innocent people get abused, backed by that stunning, night-time Hong Kong movie lighting, tight editing and great soundtrack. As the plot moves along, emotions run high with each of the cast members giving memorable performances - even Waise Lee, with a great collection of names, some just starting off in their career. Keep an eye out for the likes of Crime Story director Kirk Wong, Wong Hin Mung, Joey Wong, Paul Chu Kong, Ong Sai Kit, Michael Chow, Robin Shou, Roy Cheung, and the aforementioned Philip Kwok, who also doubles up as the action choreographer alongside Joe Chu and Paul Wong. Strangely enough, Kwok takes part in a fantastic hospital shoot-out, something that may just have inspired a certain scene in the amazing Hardboiled, where Kwok plays Mad Dog against Chow Yun Fat's gun-toting Tequila...

Brutal and fast-paced from the get-go, there's no denying its pace in the heroic bloodshed genre of Hong Kong cinema. I love The Big Heat and hope to see it resurrected with a 4K restoration one day soon. Unapologetic in its shock value and violence, the film stands as one of the most brooding and brutal crime films I have ever seen!

Overall: Powerful and memorable, The Big Heat is one of Hong Kong cinema's darkest and greatest action-thrillers that deserves to be seen!

This film, The Big Heat (Hong Kong, 1988) is outstanding, and it shows exactly what differs these movies from others. This is directed by Johnnie To and Andrew Kam and the story involves a little bunch of police officers (including Waise Lee, the smooth actor from Better Tomorrow and Bullet in the Head) who are on the trail of a criminal league which is also responsible for one of the cops' partner's death. What follows is non-stop action and never before seen cinematic mayhem.

I'm mostly attracted by the apocalyptic tone the film has. In many Hong Kong films from that period, the main theme is that what will happen to Hong Kong in 1997..? It is a subject matter that scares and really concerns people in these films. But the infernal visions of The Big Heat can also be seen universally and as a statement of the whole globe's future and attitudes which destroy it. The apocalyptic element is maintained by the action and gory mayhem, which never actually stops during the film. There are no chances to have a break and be in peace. The whole system is collapsing and everybody has to fight for life all the time or the "stronger will get you."

The action scenes and gun battles are incredible (sorry for using these adjectives so much). When I first saw this, I watched it on VHS tape, dubbed in English and fullscreen, but still that tape was uncut. When I first saw it, the film didn't have any particular effect on me, although one extremely brutal car scene stayed in my mind, but the film as a whole didn't "blow me away" back then. Then I purchased the DVD which is subtitled in English and letterboxed and after that second viewing, I was kicked in the head. This is the case usually with HK movies: they have to be seen many times, before you really can see through them and appreciate them. The Big Heat showed its real face for me during that second time and now I've ranked the film among the most outrageous, fast paced and also savagely violent action films ever. And I think that people with open minds will come to that conclusion too.

If we talk about the violence in HK films, the violent Woo movies are not too hard to take because they are so beautiful and full of more or less mysterious elements (white birds/doves, crushing statues, and so on..) but the violence in Big Heat is very different. It comes pretty close to violence in Ringo Lam's masterful Full Contact which is also pretty savage and not "beautifully" violent and symbolic as John Woo's films. I really love Woo's artistic work too, but the attitudes in his films are very different than Big Heat's.

A local collector has told me that he has tried to show Big Heat to some of his colleagues at work, and no one has managed to sit through it! That really tells something about what are chances for mainstream audiences to understand these kinds of films which DON'T intend to entertain stupid masses.

In its own masterful genre, The Big Heat is a 10 out of 10 points experience and it can be recommended only for fanatics of the challenging Far East cinema.