So duk

It has been a long time since I last watch a good heroic bloodshed genre flick. Nobody does it quite like John Woo in the 80s. The brotherhood is more important than romantic love or even familial love, the homo-heroic over-the-top orgasmic gun ballets and the prevailing notion of "to die a good death is beautiful." They are all here... I miss watching these action flicks that teach you how to be a man (one type of man) so much. The only major exponent now is Johnnie To but his emphasis on style robs the genre's quintessential central focus on loyalty and honor.

The White Storm totally surprised me and it is extremely entertaining from start to end. Prior to walking into the cinema, I really don't think much of it because it's another drug movie (Johnnie To's Drug War is still very fresh in my head) and it's a subject matter that is just too jaded. The only reason I wanted to watch this is because of the incredible heavyweight cast of Sean Lau, Nick Cheung and Louis Koo. These 3 awesome actors have never shared the big screen together. But from the get-go, Benny Chan, the director held on to my jugular and kept squeezing it with twists after turns.

The action set-pieces use the locations very well. From the night market streets of Mongkok, to dilapidated sleazy apartment blocks, to the forest of Thailand, the action is well-framed and shot. The sound design is out of this world - so much stuff is happening from the sides and in the surrounds. It would have been just plain stupid if it's just action for action's sake. No, Benny Chan always emphasizes the melodrama behind all the action pieces. One of the best shoot outs I have seen in recent years occurs at the end of the second act. Breathtaking... the see-saw shifting of power, empathetically seeing an officer get shot, all hell breaks loose, culminating to the heartbreaking scene where Sean Lau has to make the choice of his life. It's Hobson's choice really... any which way he chooses, the brotherhood disintegrates.

The acting? No need to say. The 3 of them play off each other very well. Of the 3 I enjoyed Nick Cheung's arc the most. He is a complete revelation in any role he has taken up. The ever dependent Sean Lau plays his character without histrionics but I could feel his pain. Just look at the scene where he has to make the Hobson's choice. A lesser actor would have over-acted, not Sean Lau. Then Louis Koo. He has definitely improved much in his acting but I do feel he got the short end of the 3 sticks.

The writing is quite inspired and for some reason it reminds me of John Woo's Bullet in the Head (1990). A simple 楚留香 recurring motif cements the entire narrative together. There was no need for too much homo-erotic knowing looks or nods to suggest the themes of loyalty and honor. My wife's favorite scene is when the 3 are at the hospital seeing Nick Cheung's mom for the last time. It is an incredibly written scene. I have seen so many of these death scenes but nothing like this. The words that spew out of their lips are amazingly poignant.

... and that last shoot out at the hotel. Oh man... bullet perforated faceless bodies pirouetting in a mist of smoke and red, heroes wielding 2 guns like wuxia exponents... I miss that so much. Sure, it's over the top but it's a movie and this heroic bloodshed genre has always made me a believer. I am a believer so true and through, I even wrote my dissertation on it . It would have been a masterpiece if the third act was tighter. It just felt a little bloated and over-long - a minor quibble.

If last year's Cold War which is just an opening act to a larger story won all the major HK awards, then The White Storm is going to sweep away everything this year. It is a much more accomplished action thriller with nobler aspirations.

The White Storm, the latest film from Hong Kong director Benny Chan is a undercover drug story, but it's not interested in crime genre elements or in exploring the social issue of drug production in Thailand, but the on screen chemistry between its three stars: Sean Lau, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung. The story reminded me most of John Woo's Bullet in the Head in that it was about the disintegration of a brotherhood. The dramatic conflict between the three actors are the price of admission. It has a very interesting A story that could have made a great film, but The White Storm spends a lot of the 134-minute running time telling instead of showing its story. And also like Bullet in the Head, it executes it in the hammiest way possible under the guise of Hong Kong 80′s action nostalgia.

For example, in the story Koo, Lau and Cheung are lifelong friends. The film chooses to exposit this by having the trio reminisce about singing the theme song "Pledge to Join the War" by Adam Cheng from the classic TV show "Luk Siu Feng", a classic song about brotherhood. And later on in the movie, Benny Chan plays the goddamn song. This is just about the oldest, hokiest joke in the book; they may as well have tied red headbands around their heads. People in my theater, including myself, laughed, not because it's a funny clever reference but more in surrender of how shamelessly cheesy the writers were willing to go to highlight their bromance. Yes, they are very good friends, we get it!

Sean Lau is the subtle glue that holds all this cheese together. Something I observed about Lau was that he had all the best lines and was the only one out of the three protagonists who was not given a backstory. The lines of dialogue aren't good in a cool quotable way, but it was exactly what the character would say in a given moment, no more no less. I suspect Lau rewrote a lot of his own lines. He gives a pronounced performance that's as low volume and non-showy as this production will allow, but yet he comes out as the most engaging character. It's really a testament to how underrated an actor Lau is.

Louis Koo and Nick Cheung, as good as they are and as much effort as they put in, overact compared to Lau. They are fine actors but are bogged down delivering a lot of expositional monologues stating how they feel. The romantic subplots Koo and Cheung are given almost dangerously dominate the A story. It's not their fault though, Benny Chan directs with a heavy hand. It's as if Chan and the writers constantly worry that the audience won't be able to follow what's going on, so they overcompensate.

Speaking of overcompensation, Lo Hoi-Peng shows up with crazy acting hair to chew up scenery, and boy, does he ever chew! It's entertaining watching an old man act bananas but the hair does most of the acting. It's hammy as hell. But despite of all the ham and cheese, Louis Koo, Sean Lau and Nick Cheung make very good company and are the price of admission. And at its core The White Storm is a good story about three friends, I just wished it wasn't screamed at me.

When John Woo's, The Killer, was all the rage, when Ringo Lam's, Full Contact, was the best film I'd ever seen and long, long before Korea took the crown of best action films made in Asia, Hong Kong was the go to place to get your kicks.

Thankfully, people like Benny Chan are still in town, so not only did we get the rare instance of a superior remake with his, Connected (orig. Cellular, USA), back in 2008, but now I've discovered this gem from 2013, which is simply made for fans of Hong Kong's golden era, right before Britain's hand-over.

When three buddy cops go on a mission to bust a drug lord in Thailand, common sense gets ignored (or they wouldn't have even been there in the first place) and they soon suffer for it. Fast forward five years and an unexpected event leads to a chance of revenge...

Yes, I'd definitely recommend this one! Sure, it has its faults, but if you're a red blooded man into heroic deeds, men bonding without the implied subconscious homo-erotica crap that Hollywank inflicts upon its viewers, and you like your action in abundance, then give this film a chance.

And if you're unfamiliar with Hong Kong's glory days of action cinema, you might even rate this higher than I did.

I saw this for the first time few days back. It is directed by Benny Chan n some fellas like me may remember his Who Am I n New Police Story. It has some known n familiar faces but I dont know too many names of actors from China n Hong Kong.

Three childhood friends as adults r working for the Narcotics Bureau. One among em has been undercover for a long time in a gang. His wife is pregnant n he wants to finish off the gang n start a normal life. His dream of a normal life gets more delayed when he is informed that the trio has to catch a much bigger fish with a very weird hairstyle. The entire time while viewing this film I was laughing at the villain's hairstyle n i was wondering what hairdresser on earth wud do that n finally when one of the character ridicules him for that, I couldn't stop laughing loudly. The film has some good action sequences. Bullet shells hitting on the face is unique, the sole of a foot gets shot, a bullet gets pierced in the cheek n some over the top, slo mo gun totting scenes. It also has a hand fight leading to a brutal smashing of the chin. A man gets shot n thrown in a water quarry infested with crocodiles. Ther is a very bad scene of a man not bleeding to death aft a hand chopping scene. The location of the water quarry is amazing. Characters r wearing nice watches n one of the watch is Fiyta.

THE WHITE STORM is another big Hong Kong action blockbuster, directed by Benny Chan of WHO AM I? Fame. This one stars three big beasts in the form of Louis Koo, Sean Lau and Nick Cheung, and all three are on good form. The film itself seems to have been made as a homage to John Woo's BULLET IN THE HEAD, featuring as it does a trio of cops who head off to Thailand to bring down a massive drug lord known as the Eight-Headed Buddha. What follows is a story is a story of betrayal and heroism, focusing on the usual bromance found in this genre. Sadly, the running time is far too long which means that some of this is pure melodrama and goes on and on at the expense of the action. I still enjoyed it, but I can't say it's one I'd revisit. Let's hope the sequels pick things up...