Jackie Chan: The Prisoner

Film maker Chu Yin-Ping's Island of Fire (1990, Hong Kong) stars Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau and Tony Leung and they're all great. Tony plays a cop who goes undercover into one infamous prison in order to search for the truth behind one criminal who was supposed to be dead but seems not to be that way. Jackie plays a sort of lowlife who kills a man and is sent to the prison. Andy plays a violent triad boss who seeks revenge for the man who killed his brother. Sammo is a man who misses his son and occasionally breaks free from the prison in order to see him, and is always badly beaten as a punishment. Living in that prison is dangerous and so are the wardens, and once violence finally reaches a horrific climax mostly because of Leung's character, some new aspects about the prison death sentences and those "killed" are revealed.

Director Chu has made many films which include a violent and gritty triad film Requital (1992) and Island has some familiar elements from that film, too. Fortunately Island omits all the possible comic situations which too often destroy many otherwise great or noteworthy HK films and make them more than irritating to watch. Island is serious and pretty dark film and that is a great thing.

There are couple of great and also emotional scenes which include the rice eating scene and Sammo meeting his son scene, but they remain a little separate as they don't, after all, give too much to the whole story, characters and film content and they just serve to give those scenes themselves some touching and dramatic elements without adding anything which would mean something important for the whole film. So this film is pretty shallow and misses any message or themes it may had been able to have. It has some heroic (bloodshed) scenes and scenes depicting the friendship and loyalty between the prisoners and those scenes are among the greatest things this film can give, but they are never handled as far as John Woo does, for example. Also, the ending is pretty non-believable but still great and gritty action scene which also could have meant something more than it now does. The gratuitous final image is there just to make the film look nicer and leave sweeter taste to the mouth, and thus it is pretty commercial and unnecessary, I think.

The film concentrates on to give us fierce martial arts fights and equally fierce gun battles and as a pure action film this film succeeds and should please the junkies of HK action cinema, but if one prefers films with something more than just action, then Island of Fire isn't among the greatest recommendations. I can appreciate this due to its high impact action and mayhem on screen, again something never/rarely equaled by Western cinema, but still I give this "just" 6/10.

The British DVD by Hong Kong Legends includes the rare deleted scenes (approx. 30 minutes) which were included only in the Taiwanese version of the film. They give many new aspects to the film character's and in a way improve the film. Also the interview with the director is among the most interesting (albeit brief) extras I've seen in any DVD.

Deranged, but pretty decent prison drama. Jackie's pretty cool in it, playing a somewhat unlikable character. My favorite though is Sammo Hung, who keeps escaping the prison, just to see his son, and the all-star cast is cool to see. It's not really bad, but the ending comes out of nowhere, even though it is cool to see. Jackie did this one to pay back a debt....

With a stellar line up of HK stars including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Tony Leung and Andy Lau (some of whom appeared as a favour to the director, who was in dire financial trouble with some 'dodgy types'), this brutal film mixes emotional drama, savage violence and OTT action to deliver an effective little addition to the prison movie sub-genre.

Tony Leung plays Andy, a cop who gets himself sent to prison after his future father-in-law is murdered by a supposedly executed convict. Whilst trying to figure out how a dead prisoner can become an assassin, he befriends various other prisoners, but himself becomes a target of some of the less desirable characters in the prison.

Those drawn to this film by the presence of 'wacky Jackie' will be sorely disappointed, since Mr. Chan appears in only a few scenes, and even the fights he participates in are not up to his usual acrobatic standard. However, fans of the other big stars should get their money's worth; Prison on Fire may be no classic, but it is entertaining enough to be worth a go.

Anyone who has seen their fair share of prison movies will know what to expect from this kind of affair: nice guy prisoners who we are supposed to root for; bad guys who make our hero's life a living hell; prison escapes and riots; and the occasional 'funny' scene to lift the mood (in this case, Sammo's ogling of a big breasted woman whose car breaks down near to his work detail). This one has it all!

It also has a rather enjoyably silly ending which features loads of gunfire and some slow-motion squib effects, and more disturbingly, a shocking scene which features an Alsatian being kicked in the head (the poor mutt flies through the air and lands awkwardly on its back!).

If you wish to check out this movie, find either the Taiwanese version, or the Hong Kong Legends DVD; the Taiwanese cut features several scenes missing from the US release, whilst the HK Legends disc includes them as an extra.

I see reviews about this being a decent movie.... Have i been watching something different to everyone else?

The entire thing feels like seven movies all randomly edited together with totally nonsensical plot lines and timings. It's jarring, weird and quite frankly, crap.

The dubbed version obviously made the acting look and sound worse than it probably really was but wow, what an interesting hour and a half this has been.

Also, definitely NOT a Jackie Chan film. He's like a random, almost unnecessary secondary character.

Overall: Loads of unfinished threads, messy ending, messy editing, unanswered questions. 3.5/10.

The prisoner is a typical hongkong action movie, with great action but also with exxagerated drama and humour. But if you are a fan like me, you will get used to this if you watch a lot of them. The prisoner is a serious movie with some humour in it. It isn't a jackie chan movie, but it is a movie with jackie chan in it. A serious one, which we don't get to see very often . But in this he is great, especially at the end (Jackie a la John Woo).