Sunday, August 05, 2007
I woke late, stayed at home the whole day, attempting to catch up with my long overdue diary entries, I exercised a little, but mainly managed to catch
Flash PointIts appropriate that Flash point is set before the 1997 handover, as its exactly the sort of hard-hitting, kinetic actioner for which Hong Kong used to be known and revered for. Donnie Yen seems to have made it his personal responsibility to keep HK's heritage alive and more power to him. Come to think of it, if he had any more power, his muscles would explode through his skin.
Flashpoint tells the tale of Jun Ma, a serious crime detective sergeant has been working on to crack a triad of three brothers; Archer, Tony and Tiger for years. He planted a mole, Wilson to infiltrate into the gang. Over the years, Wilson started to have more disagreements with Jun Ma. During a gang confrontation, Wilson's cover was blown. His former “brothers” run him down, causing him to break his leg. Their thirst for revenge still unsated, they redouble their efforts to kill Wilson, and eventually kidnap his girlfriend.
Fortunately, Jun Ma has Wilson's back. A one-man wrecking crew with a long list of police brutality complaints to his name, Jun Ma singlehandedly takes on the gang. Using a deadly combination of traditional kung-fu and new fangled martial arts techniques, Jun Ma destroys the baddies in satisfyingly brutal fashion. One fellow, who uses a child as a shield, is singled out for a particularly nasty whacking.
Perhaps inspired by Mark Wahlberg's recent antics in shooter, Jun Ma also makes good use of a sniper rifle.
There have been an awful lot of undercover cop movies in the wake of Infernal Affairs, but this is the first we've seen that does not try to ape the arty style a s well as the killer premise of Lau/Mak classic. Flashpoint is all action.
I couldn't give high scores as a movie critique, but as a martial artist myself, I totally enjoyed the whole movie. The plot was quite shallow. There were several scenes that could be improved on to further promote the friendship with Wilson etc.
But for the action, totally kick-ass. Donnie Yen's fighting styles were signature Kung-Fu, but later it seemed to transgress into other styles which I identified as Jiu-Jitsu (Ground fighting and, locks and grappling techniques) and for the final fight he seemed to have used some Capoeira. I'd watch the fight scenes all over again.
FX - 3/5 points.
4:07 AM
