'Z' fung bou

Simplistic but enthusiastic rendering of HK anti-corruption police work. Nothing too deep, violent or graphic. The Untouchables it is not. But credible acting from an experienced set of actors make the movie easy to watch.

Michael Wong's Cantonese with a Western accent had me in stitches.

My sequence in seeing this anti corruption series is proved to be correct. This first one is the most entertaining. The fast moving pace of the story makes the movie exciting. Acting of leads are above standard. I have virtually no complaint on the movie, except that Chan, as a suspected bribed senior police officer, could be so powerful.

My feeling on commentary of the series is intensely underrated. Especially this first one is actually very entertaining. But I just cannot figure out why the rate of IMDB and professional critics is so low. To me, I recommend especially to the Mainland watchers to boost their sense of anti corruption.

Z Storm is about agents from the anti-corruption agency ICAC investigating a major conspiracy in Hong Kong involving high-ranked individuals. The investigation leader is William Luk, one of those tough but good guys.

I stopped watching this movie abruptly. The main reason is because I got bored of it. But it is not your general boring, "can't stand this stuff" type of thing; it's boring in a unique way. The best explanation I can think of is this movie feels like a Mexican soap opera. You jump from one segment to the next as short rushed events. Although canon, you feel like someone is telling you a story while late to take the train. By halftime, I was too bored by the plot to try to continue.

The plot itself is interesting enough for something good to arise. But the feeling of nothingness in the main events destroys the entertainment.

There was a time were I would painfully do my best to get to the end of any movie no matter what. Today, after a while, if I'm not hooked into the movie, I create a sincere review and move on.

A 2 because my culture might have biased my experience.

Smart and well-designed, but almost boring, espionage and politics (read corruption) are not to my liking, but we have a fine example of institutional and governmental corruption, we'll move on to the second, much less enthusiastic...

Yes the movie is quite predictable and you may find yourself wondering why certain elements are not being exploited earlier in the movie. Having said that there are quite a few fun performances here. And when I say fun I mean good ones. If you are familiar with Hong Kong cinema, you may even recognize some of the actors.

It's an action thriller and based on that (rating or looking at the stunts), this is a success. This is not Shakespeare or high drama (although it does contain some amount of that too of course), but something that can be a rollercoaster ride. A good versus evil theme, even if some of the bad ones are disguised as "good people". This is not Infernal Affairs, but not every movie can be that. That doesn't take anything away from the entertainment this can provide