User reviews

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.

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.

Story takes place in a prison. Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Sammo Hung and few other stars of the era. The movie is supervised by Jackie Chan's old colleague Jimmy Wang Yu.

The plot is about a prison where the convicts are part of a recruitment program to do special biddings for the government. The selection criteria is not obvious, but it seems that one's who had a fight in the prison and fought well got recruited. Who the true culprit is, and what twist in the plot there is at the end must be seen.

It's one of few movie where Jackie is not the star. There's also a rare fight scene between Jackie and Andy Lau.

It's hard to categorize what this movie is. It's a generic action movie, but there's lot of super A list actors appearing just as a co-star. Unfortunately they are under utilized, and the movie fails to achieve stellar performance it could have had.

Maybe this was movie made based on friends getting together, and chipping in their talents. This would have been possible with someone with Jimmy Wang's clout.

The movie is somewhat of an enigma in Hong Kong movie history.

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....

First, let me state that Jackie Chan is NOT the star of this film. Nor are Andy Lau, or Sammo Hung.

Tony Leung Kar Fai IS the star and plays a policeman who is put in prison to find out why a vicious gangster was freed to wreak havoc on the world. In prison he finds a rats' nest of corruption and violence.

He is soon thinking of ways to avoid and/or alter the volatile atmosphere he finds there by befriending one of the Kingpins, and by becoming a "cheerleader" for more wholesome ways to let off steam (i.e. a race to see who can finish building a road first).

Jackie Chan has a tiny role as a man who accidentally kills the brother of mobster, Andy Lau, and is seen in sporadic bursts throughout the remainder of the film, trying to avoid death. In general, a forgettable role...and I'm such a Jackie fan that I even own most of the "dogs" he has done. I include this film in that category.

Andy Lau is seen so seldom, you almost forget he is in the film.

All of this is just fine with me as I watch the film for Tony Leung who is a real babe! He is a terrific and versatile actor who shines even in losers like this film. He is kind of like an Asian, male Bette Davis. His performance does not disappoint.

Nor does Sammo Hung, who is touching in his performance of a man who will do and risk anything to visit his young son.

The end of this film is a confusing gore fest which will thrill some and disgust others.

All in all, I gave the film a 5. It was worth seeing, but I may not revisit for some time.

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.

One of the greatest movie of Jackie! I recommend this movie to all of you that like karate movies.

I really like movies like this one.

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A cast of great actors is wasted in this "do me a favor" movie that Jackie did as a favor to Jimmy Wang Yu for helping Jackie out with triads bothering him. Sammo, Andy Lau,Tony Leung Ka Fai and JC are completely wasted in this poorly made and boring film.

Island Of Fire aka The Prisoner is a Chinese language prison actioner. I have the American version and usually US companies butcher Chinese movies to make them more marketable for action audiences, taking out important plot points and terrible English overdubbing. This movie is no exception to that, however I did find this reasonably entertaining. Tony Leung Ka Fai( who starred in Prison On Fire, The Lover,etc) is the lead here as an undercover cop that goes to prison. He is joined by Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau and Jimmy Wang Yu. This ensemble cast did the movie as a favor and out of respect for Jimmy Wang Yu, who was also produced the film as well. The movie comes across a bit clunky as a poor man's Death Warrant, but with much better fight scenes. The movie rips off seemingly every prison movie ever made and the plot seems to drift off and end with a John Woo style shootout at the end. I'm sure the Tawainese version is better and makes more sense, but for action this is not a bad time passer at all. However, if you consider the combined talents of the cast, it was a wasted opportunity to do something great.

This is a confused mixture of a cop movie, a Kung Fu fight movie, a prison movie and then they decide they need to make a Chinese version of Cool Hand Luke. I love Jackie Chan movies when he is funny, but this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is a total waste of his wonderful talents. Sure, there are fight scenes, but there aren't that many. It looks like they kept changing their mind about what the movie was going to be, but they didn't redo the whole movie, just start the new direction and then splice it all together.

Island on Fire (1990) was released in three different version, the Hong Kong theatrical run, the badly dubbed nonsensical U.S. version and the original two hour plus Taiwan cut. The best one out of the three is the Taiwanese print. This film was a "charity" film that was made to help the director who was in some real "financial" trouble with some shady characters.

The director's best friend "Jimmy" Wang Yu called up some actors who "owed" him some favors. The top flight actors did the work for little or no pay. They were making a movie that was going to make some money, not a classic or anything like that. Just a quick film that'll make some fast bucks. Let's take a look at the different prints shall we?

1.) The Hong Kong cut is a fast paced action film. Only the bare bones are left. Little plot is left in the way of seeing some of the actors on the screen. The story is simple, someone is hiring dead criminals to whack important people. Tony Leung Ka Fai get's involved when his fiancée's father get's whacked by the "dead" assassin. After snooping around he finds out that they're coming from a Taiwanese prison. So, old Tony gets himself arrested and his buddy pulls a few strings to get him inside the "big house".

2.) The United States print re-dubs a lot of the scenes making many of them nonsensical. The dialog is drastically changed and some scenes are just re-dubbed (i.e. Jackie Chan is thrown in prison for accidentally killing Andy Lau's brother).

Whilst in prison Andy Lau tries to have some of his inside men try and kill Jackie. Wang Yu doesn't want the prisoners killing each other or stupid things like that. He wants it civil inside. So to placate Lau's men he slices his arm and squeezes out some blood whilst telling them, "Let Lau know that I have bled for his brother, there will be no violence in my prison." Well, to that effect any way.

In the U.S. version he just cuts his arm to show the two how "crazy" he can get. "You wanna see crazy! I'll show you crazy!!" he tells the two as he cut's his arm?! Doesn't make any sense. It goes on like this for ninety minutes! The DVD is horrible, not only is it badly dubbed but the "commentary" is worthless. Hell I know more about the movie than the guy they put on it.

3.) The Taiwanese cut is over two hours long and it fleshes out the characters. Unlike the Hong Kong version, the film is fully subtitled in English (the subs disappear during the last eight minuted in the Hong Kong print). What I like about the Taiwan version is that the true motives of the characters are revealed. The movie makes a lot more sense and you call feel for them. It's also not as jumpy and confusing.

The rest of the movie is real interesting. You'll be in for a surprise by the wild ending and the shocking conclusion!

Highly recommended!

Taiwan print: A+

H.K. print: B

U.S. print: F-

This film was a real disappointment to martial art and Jackie Chan films. The film states Jackie Chan's name and even shows only his face on the cover, but in actuality, he is only shown for about 15 minutes of the films duration. He does not play the main character. He is not shown doing his well-known martial arts skill and is mostly shown fight while wielding a weapon. This film could have been improved greatly.

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).

I want to rate it at 5/10 but give it +1 star for the final gunfight scene at the airport.

I waste 1hr watching the movie wondering why all these stars act in this movie but if you read other reviewer here u will know it's because the actors join this movie to help the director.

The final 15mins of the movie is the highlight, just too bad the 1hour prison story didn't really make the audience get into the movie.

Jackie Chan is not the star of this crazy collage as the video box suggests. I can't believe he made a movie with this much profanity and gratuitous violence. It just doesn't seem to be him. He isn't in the movie very much though. The action in this is very mediocre. It is funny at the end Jackie when Jackie is running around with guns blazing killing people like he is Rambo.

Not only does this movie not star Jackie Chan, who appears as a secondary character; and not only is it sorely lacking in the sort of kung-fu action scenes you may expect - this movie contains more ripoff scenes than any other film you're likely to see.

Several scenes are lifted directly from other prison films, most notably Cool Hand Luke. There are also segments and ideas taken from Papillon, The Great Escape, La Femme Nikita, and others. This movie should only be watched if you think it would be funny to see Sammo Hung play Cool Hand Luke.

They say there 3 different version of Island of Fire and the U.S dub is the worst of the bunch but the sub version i got despite the same amount runtime as the U.S version is not that bad as all.The big problem is the cast is full of A-list actors that i know and love like:Jackie Chan,Andy Lau,Sammo Hung and Jimmy Wang Yu so with a runtime about 96 minutes it not surprise the movie fell flat on the characters.Near the end it turn from a prison movie into a heroic bloodshed movie that make me speechless cause it so out of nowhere and awesome.

This is a good film, yes IT IS DIFFERENT FROM YOUR NORMAL CHAN FILM YOU CHAN FANS, i am a chan fan but you have to give way to a change every now and then, and this is deffinately one. Yes the film is what you heard, brutal, violent, everything a jackie chan film is not. But this is not a jackie chan film. If you put this in order of screen time Tong Leung Ka Fai would edge it, then possibly Sammo Hung or maybe even Chung-Hua Tao as Charlie (even though he is not billed as a main character.) Andy Lau And Jackie Chan have a relatively small part in the film but they do make an impact.

To talk about the plot, the film takes place in a prison, mostly. Borrowing largely from Prison On Fire directed by Ringo Lam also starring tony leung ka fai. To Run through the characters, tony leung is a cop and has placed himself (quite randomly) undercover into this prison that he believes to be corrupt. Unfortunately the writers seem to forget that he is a cop for most of the movie and finally realise 4/5 the way through the film again, but i dont want to spoil anything. Sammo Hung is well already in jail, and the touching part of the story is the fact that he wants to get out to see his son, about 5 years old i guess. Jackie Chan is some innocent guy that gets caught up in a killing and is also sent to the prison, Andy Lau happens to be the brother of the person killed by Jackie Chan, so he basically wants revenge. Sammo hung's character is involved in the touching parts of the film when he for instance escapes to see his son. This is early on in the film and i do not want to ruin it for you. Chung-Hua Tao plays Charlie he is the roommate of Leung ka fai, there is a very interesting Sub Plot, only avaliabe on the Taiwan release and the superb hong kong legends print of the dvd, that has 30 mins of delete footage as a extra (not in the film as the quailty was VHS quality) the sub plot is about how Chung-Hua Tao's character is trying to be freed by his grandmother and how she dies and then he hangs himself, but is saved by leung ka fai's character. That is just a brief overview but it is horrific that they took this all out of the movie as it adds another level, seeing that Chung-Hua Tao's character who seems so innocent was basically brought up not knowing the difference between right and wrong.

Tony Leung Ka Fai carries this movie very well, he proved to me that he is a very good actor, (unfortunately he got arrested) this was the first film that i saw him in. Sammo Hung plays his part well and it is different from normal, as he uses his acting ability and not his fighting ability. Jackie chan is basically there to showcase his fighting ability he is there in all the hand to hand combat scenes, and is used well seeming as he only gave up 3 to 4 days of his time to the production and the director, Andy Lau gets a chance to play a bad guy, as they all do really, it is good to see the different and how they can act as the opposite from normality. Chung-Hua Tao plays his character very well and adds the level of supposed innocence to the film and there is an emotional scene towards the end that i do not want to mention involving him. The acting is very good overall in this film.

To give my opinion on the film i find it hard to see why everyone hates this, it is a good film in its own right, so what if it borrowed from another film, its what your watching at the time that matters. I can understand why Jackie Chan disowned the film as it is nothing like his films with the Exception of Crime Story, but why did he give up his time? i think most of it has to do with the end scene which is very emotional, possibly the most emotional scene from a hong kong action movie i have seen, the actors are used well regardless of what a lot of people think. If a lot of people had given their time to the film they would have seen it from a different direction and realised that it is in fact a very good film on many levels. Action, Drama, whatever you wanna call it, it has achieved a different level to most films i see and i think that is why a lot of fans also disregard this film as a waste of time.

i would highly recommend this, There are scenes of graphic violence, one scene of animal cruelty (however you never see the human kick the animal) and the film is quiet harrowing.

I would like to give the soundtrack a credit as it added terrific atmosphere to the film and also i would like to mention the great release from Hong Kong Legends, they did us proud again. With one of the worst prints that they have had to work with they made it look like a new movies. Well done.

No pun intended - the movie keeps a lot of very well known actors locked up - see cast list. But kidding aside, I was surprised to see the cast list. I was only able to watch the theatrical cut and not the extended taiwanese cut ... which has 30 plus minutes more to it ... I did however see the "deleted scenes" of it (it's on the disc).

Seeing Jackie Chan be bad ... and serious ... I thought he only had one movie under his belt that was not the whole let's make fun of everything ... looks like he did a couple. This one included. The shorter version is also a mess when it comes to the story ... or the viewers ability to follow it. Too many characters, too little time spend with them. The longer version makes more sense ... still no perfect.

These comments are based on watching the English language US version of the film.

After his friend is assassinated policeman Andy Lau is surprised to discover that the killer's fingerprints match those of a convict who had apparently been executed recently... either something is wrong with the computer records or something is very wrong at the prison. As it doesn't appear to be the former he agrees to go undercover in the prison to uncover the truth. The prison is a brutal place and Andy has nobody to go to if he gets in trouble. In the prison we are introduced to other key characters; John 'Fatty' Liu, who keeps escaping to visit his son; Steve, who is marked for death because he accidentally killed a crime boss's brother and Lucas, the unofficial leader of the convicts.

I don't know if it was just the version of the film I watched but it certainly seemed rather lacking. The most obvious weakness is that once in prison Andy barely bothers to investigate; he asked a few questions about the late assassin, got in trouble with Lucas, then he was just another prisoner who gets caught up in a few scrapes. Jackie Chan is sold as the lead actor but in reality he plays a secondary character; we do get to see some of his trademark action, which is rather fun, at least. Sammo Hung provides some of the film's more amusing moments as John. There is a reasonable amount of action; the regular fight scenes are pretty good but the shootouts are a bit unrealistic to say the least. The acting looked good enough but the dub is pretty poor; none of the voices really went well with their characters making them hard to believe in. Overall I'd only recommend watching this version of the film if you are desperate to see it and can't find a Chinese version with subtitles.