Inferno, les soldats du feu

I liked this one a lot better than I thought I would. It's a good Chinese disaster movie, very cheesy and sentimental at times, but fitfully exciting and engaging with it. Sean Lau and Louis Koo team up (as always) as a couple of firefighters who end up inside a state-of-the-art high rise when a huge fire breaks loose. It's a loose remake/reworking of THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE TOWER, albeit with CGI fires which I personally dislike, but there's little you can do about that these days. The drama is high and the stakes higher, with constant stunts and suspense sequences and a cast gradually being whittled down. Fun!

This movie came out a few months after Korea's "The Tower", which also involves a high rise fire, and the fire department coming to the rescue, however, that movie was big budget, had top billed actors, and top of the line effects. Both movies use CG fire, but "The Tower" used real fire too, for in "Out of Inferno", it's all computer generated, something out of a Sci-fi Original movie, it looks tacky and fake, very unconvincing and cheap. The building itself looks like a generic office building, not the larger than life Tower Sky from the Korean movie, you were convince it was a real twin tower, although it was computer generated, for "Out of Inferno" it seems they selected a ordinary building in Hong Kong or Guangzhou, not nearly as impressive or awe inspiring. On a lighter note, at least the acting is good, everyone delivers good lines and performances, so you wanted them to survive, this movie also takes influence from "Backdraft", with two estranged brother firemen, that lost their father to a fire, told in flashback, it would have been better if this was the intro. Overall, it's better to watch "The Tower", it's intense and over the top, it has great effects and good performances, but if you want a less intense firefighting movie from Asia, "Out of Inferno" is a standard action movie.

"Out of Inferno" turned out to be somewhat similar, if not a little bit better than "Backdraft". Why? Well, this was pure action and thrills, whereas "Backdraft" was weighed down by drama and a somewhat laughable story.

Imagine a towering commercial building set ablaze with nowhere to run, whilst fire is consuming the lower levels, but also spreading on the levels above you. Then you have "Out of Inferno".

The movie was quick to pick up pace and keep going at that pace, not really becoming dull or boring at any point.

However, one thing did puzzle me, since this was a Hong Kong movie, why was it shot on location in Thailand and China? It would have made more sense had it been filmed on location in Hong Kong, also by bringing more familiarity to us who are familiar with the places in Hong Kong (as I have lived there), but instead they opted to shoot in two different non-related places. That was just stupid.

That being said, then the performances in "Out of Inferno" was quite good, and there were some pretty big names to the cast list, some Hong Kong heavyweighters, if you will. Ching Wan Lau, Louis Koo and Angelica Lee performed quite nicely together in this movie.

However, for a Pang brothers movie, then "Out of Inferno" wasn't quite up to their usual standards. For some reason, perhaps it is just my own personal opinion, then they make horror and thrillers better than they make action movies.

The name of the movie was a little bit ridiculous, but hey, that is just a matter of personal preference, of course.

"Out of Inferno" is well worth a watch if you enjoy Asian cinema.

The acting is fairly good, and overall it's a fairly well-done piece of work but some scenes just drag on forever that takes out the excitement that could have been.

With too much oversentimental music and some scenes that simply should have been cut down or cut out entirely and others that should never have been in slow-motion.

Most of the fires are visibly CGI'd but they still look pretty neat so I didn't mind too much.

Would have worked if it was a fast-paced 85 minute movie, but at the length it is 107 it simply gets too boring at times to truly recommend.

I mean I wouldn't advice you not to watch it on TV or anything, it does have a couple really well orchestrated action-scenes after all and it's a decent enough script, albeit simple and typical.

First off, i was attracted by the A list actors who has always given their best in acting and a good selection of their scripts but boy was i wrong. This movie is yet another colonization of good movies by China! It seems that it is inevitable as A list actors choose money over art! First it was Andy Lau who takes up any and everything he can get from China, then it was Stephan Chow and now Louise Khoo, what a disgrace to the movie industry.

I'm sorry if readers feel this is a hate comment but i speak the truth. China movie industry has not improve a dart bit through out the years. If China wants to improve on their artistic culture perhaps they should first liberalized the industry and improve their moral decay. Shame on these HK actors with so much experience and talent fallen prey to greed!!! HK pls choose your partners wisely!