Fung bou

Firestorm, the latest action thriller starring Andy Lau, is a character study trying to burst out of its commercial contraptions. The commercial aspects is a cops and robbers film with the volume turned up to eleven. Every moment is crucial. One can almost take the last frame of every shot, matte it and make a comic book out of the whole movie. The hidden art-house aspects are the character study of its two leads and the morality play of right and wrong, which emanates later in the story. Director Alan Yuen keeps things moving along, artfully combining these two components in such a way that there's never time for the audience to stop and think. For most of it, Firestorm is a fun ride.

Andy Lau leads the film sufficiently as the film's righteous hero, but the heavy lifting comes with a cost. Senior Inspector Lui is mostly an action-oriented role. And he only gets interesting till the later portion when the Infernal Affairs-like morality play begins. It's only then Lau holsters his gun and gets to chew some scenery.

It is great to see Gordon Lam, Hong Kong's most versatile working character actor, finally play a lead role in a feature film. Out of the two leads, Lam has the more complex character. Andy Lau is billed as the lead on the poster, but the story is arguably more about Gordon Lam. He's never given a bad performance and here he is the heart of the story. Yao Chen, who I thought would be a love interest for Andy Lau's character (as it usually would), is the romantic love interest for Gordon Lam. I doubt a modern working woman in this day and age will tolerate a convict boyfriend to the level that she does, but Yao Chen brings a much-needed believability to the situation by reacting.

For what the film does for Gordon Lam, it falls short with veteran actors Hu Jun and Ray Lui, who are oddly undeveloped villains. This is not the way to use actors of their caliber; they deserve better. Michael Wong also has a cameo as Andy Lau's boss. Does Wong treat every Chinese film producer to dinner every week or has comprising photos of them? He tries to be subtle, which for him means trying to whisper his lines in a high-pitched voice as if he breathed vials of helium before each take. He is god awful as usual, but fortunately there is very little of him.

The action sequences are all entertaining and it is impressive how they are all set in in busy Hong Kong locales. There's a sufficient amount of design going into the 3D for its action scenes; everybody uses tracer ammunition (which highlights the bullet trajectory) and there's a noteworthy portion with birds. One particular high wire action set piece got too ridiculous. Let's just say if I was dangling at a high altitude, I wouldn't purposely slam the scaffolding that's hoisting me. The finale shootout in Central's Queen Street is the price of admission. Suffice to say, mayhem ensues. For any Airsoft fans out there, with all the Hong Kong police uniforms, SWAT gear, guns and muzzle flash that appears on screen, this will be Disneyland for you.

To match its drama with an epic operatic grandeur, Firestorm's story is built around the metaphor of an oncoming typhoon blowing towards Hong Kong. As my creative writing teacher once said about one of my short stories, "Your pathetic fallacy is pathetic." Sorry, it is too over- the-top at times. For example, Peter Kam's bombastic operatic score is akin to a Final Fantasy game. It sounded like a choir of angels were chanting for Andy Lau's survival through the gunfire. The work Peter Kam done on Isabella and Throwdown has shown subtlety and used music as a way to bring the audience into its world. I noticed that the quiet contemplative score sounded one octave away from the Infernal Affairs score. This is not Kam's fault. I imagine this is the product of financiers citing references based on past box office success. Let's face it, current Chinese and Hong Kong cinema is becoming a producer's medium.

I was aware of how much commercial box ticking was going on throughout the film, but they were never overtly blatant enough to bother my enjoyment. Whenever Firestorm was being too loud and bashing my head, it was the hidden artsy choices, like Gordon Lam in a lead role, the undercover story arc with its morality play, that lifted it back up for me. It's a fun time at the movies and if you're going to see it, the 3D version will not disappoint.

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the prior reviewer wrote " a noteworthy lead role performance from andy lau ", or something of the sort. ...uhhhh, i'm sorry but, nottt! there was actually a very noteworthy performance but it didn't come from andy, i think he tried( he also produced ) but just wasn't up for a above average performance. unfortunately, he was just average and that was one of two things that kill a potentially great action genre movie.

my other gripe with the movie is that even though every action scene was performed in top-notch form, a couple of them were just way way over the top to the point that it make me snicker. on top of that there were another couple of action scenes that were very very hard to believe. the tracer bullets i think were more for the viewers of the movie.

...now, for the good. lam ka tung in a break-out leading man role finally. if lam wasn't in this movie, it would've been a disaster. he was a joy to watch and hes been a little better in other movies but never in the leading role.

even though i mentioned before that some of the action was too unbelievable, there were two that were very very memorable. there were a lot of action scenes and every one was well done, as campy as some of them were.

there was a very pretty leading lady who didn't get much screen time, a couple of big time actors in the leading villain roles ( ray lui and hu jun ), plus a whole slew of solid character actors. the cinematography was decent and if andy lau had turned in a grittier performance it still would've been a great action movie, even with some campy action scenes.

even with all its faults " firestorm ", is still a good action movie and there was some tension and gripping scenes in the movie. still too bad though..., it could've been a special one.

I saw this last fall, 2014, when it was first released on DVD and I revisited it again, now, in the fall of 2015. I rarely do that. Basically a classical crime action flick with really smart bad guys against somewhat smart cops. Yes, it's just another armored car heist (well, a couple of them) with lots of firepower. Normally I would say it was all a bit excessive, over-the-top firepower, destruction and killing, but the pace, cinematography, exceptional CGI scenes of downtown Hong Kong with unexpected and creative twists made me stay involved and, always a good sign, not much dead time (ha) so it went quickly.

What makes it a little more special than other films in this genre is that the good people may not make it in the end. But, then too, neither do the not-so-good people.

Potential is the one word that comes to mind after watching this.

This is one of those films that really has some gems in it, but is sadly buried by issues. It's a film that is plagued by the issues that most cheesy Hong Kong action films have. Melodrama to the max, CGI all over the place, unbelievable turns of events and convoluted plot. The only thing that makes this movie different from other poorly made action films is... it's not that poorly made at all. In fact, lot's of moments are superb.

Starting with the plot, it's certainly something thats been done before. Cops VS Bank Robbers. The good side of it is that it has some interesting elements towards the end in regards to the morality of the main cop. The bad side... there's too much going on. We side plots all over the place. An overly dramatic plot with one of the criminal and his wife, who is of course friends with the main cop who has a friend who is undercover and has a young daughter and... you get the point, there's just too much. It's not that I don't think these elements could have worked... but they needed to choose only a few and make them way less dramatic. They try to make you feel for these characters by putting them in terrible or dramatic situations, but you end up laughing because it all seems so forced. It will sometimes leave you scratching your head in that way that a lot of Hong Kong films do. I often find myself confused by certain plot elements in these films, and I don't really know why. It seems exclusive to these Hong Kong films. And let me just say, the way they end this is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. I don't want to spoil it, but lets just say the "magically appearing truck" that kills a character got a massive "WHAT THE F***!?" from me and is a cheap and terrible deus ex machina.

One of the best elements is the action sequences, which can be gritty and hard hitting... until the GCI and ridiculousness kicks in. You find yourself really getting into it, only to be taken out when the obviously fake explosions send Andy Lau flying up and down and left and right and into cars and out of cars and on cars and blah blah blah. It's cheesy to the max and it blows my mind that they expect us to believe that he could survive all these explosions. It's frustrating beyond belief when you take into account just how gritty the gunfights would have been without this element. I'm pretty sure this was released in 3D in Hong Kong, which explains this element, but doesn't excuse it. Thanks for ruining some good stuff with a gimmick, guys.

There's also some nice directing and cinematography going on here as well. Certain shots are really gorgeous and nice to look at. Even the action scenes are directed well, minus the crappy explosions and stuff. It shows there is some talent going on here.

At the end of the day, I certainly didn't hate this movie. But it frustrates me more than anything, because I see the MASSIVE potential this movie had to be a classic Hong Kong film, but it misses the mark. I'm sure it won't be forgotten, as there are much blander films like this out there, but still.

Poor plot and acting from Andy Lau and crew. Trying so hard to make the bunch of criminals so tough when in reality its not that easy. Also trying so hard to evoke audience emotion and too obvious about it.