'L' fung bou

L STORM is the third in the long-running series of detective films starring Louis Koo and the first I've actually enjoyed. I found the first one a talky bore, the second one occasionally fun but average, whereas this one hits the mark more often than not. Koo is on a new case where he's investigating money laundering and finds himself up against a new gangster on the block who uses violence to ruthlessly dispatch anyone who goes against him. It's a fast-paced and complex little film with multiple narrative strands including internal affairs investigations and police corruption, and it has a fair bit of physical action to enjoy too.

There are 3 movies in the series. I like very much the 3 male leads. They are all cool, smart and with excellent acting skill. The plot is the biggest weakness. Not logical and reasonable at all. I give 7 simply for the sake of the great performance of male leads and exciting action shots. But in the Mainland China the anti-corruption series is well-received. China is only on the startpoint in anti-corruption work. Hong kong is a good model for her to follow.

This is the sort of movie fans of Hong Kong crime movies will enjoy. Corruption, action, frenetic pacing and style, it's a formula the HK movie industry used for decades as it delivered consistently entertaining if forgettable entertainment.

This has everything, lots of fighting, cartoon like villains, the gutsy honest cop, beautiful women, excess, financial corruption etc all delivered so quickly and with enough style that you gloss over plot holes and some of the silliness.

If this sounds luke warm or damning with feint praise I will say it is a very entertaining and enjoyable movie which fans of the genre will love. View it as an hour and a half of popcorn entertainment and it's great, there's nothing wrong with easy viewing entertainment but don't expect it to leave a lasting impact or stimulate deep thought.

When I found "L Feng bao" (aka "L Storm") I hadn't even heard about it. I picked it up knowing that it was a Hong Kong movie and it had Louis Koo in it, I didn't even read the synopsis. Yeah, I am that much of a fan of Asian cinema that I need little encouragement to sit down and indulge myself into a movie.

I must say that "L Storm" wasn't a particularly outstanding movie in the Hong Kong cinema history. Sure, it was entertaining, but it offered nothing new that previous movies in the same genre haven't already brought to the enjoyment of the audience. In fact, the storyline was rather generic and predictable, and that was a massive obstacle around the movie, holding it back.

The movie is well-paced and there isn't really any slumps in the progression of the storyline, just a shame that it was so generic though.

The acting in "L Storm" was good, and Louis Koo definitely carried the movie quite well. I would just have expected a movie such as this to have a bigger ensemble of established actors and actresses performing in it. A shame that it wasn't crammed with stars.

All in all, "L Storm" was a mediocre movie. Hardly a movie that I will return to watch a second time around, because the movie offered nothing new to the genre, nothing that hasn't already been exploited and explored by many previous movies.

"L Storm" is a suitable movie for newcomers to the Hong Kong cinema, and then embark on a larger journey into a cinema that is grand and majestic. But for seasoned veterans of the Hong Kong cinema, this addition felt like a half-hearted movie with director David Lam running on autopilot.

The plot of backwardness and anti-intelligence has been 8102 years, and all kinds of digital currencies are almost out of date. Laundry still uses such primitive means. The seemingly tense plot is actually complicated and lack of combing, throwing a paragraph of the plot to the audience to finish.