Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Martial Arts/ Bullet Ballet
Director: Wilson Yip
Year: 2007
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Every once in a while, life hands you a nice surprise. I set out to watch Flash Point with more a sense of duty than enthusiasm. I knew that Donny Yen was the martial arts choreographer on the show, and I’m not normally a huge fan of his work.
The plot could hardly be more simple. Triad leader Sam (Ben Lam) makes a deal with three Vietnamese brothers, Archer Sin (Ray Lui), Tiger (Xing Yu), and Tony (Ngai Sing), to transport some goods to Vietnam in return for a share of the profits. The three brothers simply take the goods, sell them and keep all the money. Obviously Sam objects to this, and the brothers respond by doing their best to kill Sam and all of his crew.
Witnessing all of this is Wilson (Louis Koo), who works with the Vietnamese gang but who is actually an undercover Hong Kong policeman. The cops arrest Archer Sin, but the other two brothers get away. The rest of the movie concerns Tiger and Tony’s attempts to eliminate the witnesses for Archer’s trial, Wilson and Sam.
Okay, I know we’ve all seen this plot at least a dozen times before, but what makes Flash Point special is the execution. The villains of Flash Point may not be as flashy as the Golden Age of Hong Kong villains, but they’re certainly nasty and resilient, grade A antagonists. These guys are just relentless at coming up with plots to assassinate the witnesses, and they don’t care how much collateral damage they cause. In other words, my kind of guys.
Louis Koo is sympathetic as the undercover cop, his girlfriend Judy (Fan Bing-Bing) is adorable, and it’s nice to see good old Kent Cheng on hand, too, as the cop in charge of the unit. Donny Yen himself isn’t all that great an actor, but at least he sticks to what he does best, playing a hardassed cop. Best of all is Ngai Sing, who plays the most vicious of the baddies — that is one scary dude.
The filmmaking is excellent, too. Director Wilson Yip keeps the proceedings moving smartly along, his framing is excellent, he moves the camera well, and his stylistic flourishes, such as the very disciplined whip pans and zoom outs, serve to accentuate the action instead of distracting from it.
The score is a thousand time better than those cheesy old hair metal and synthesizer monstrosities so common in Golden Age of Hong Kong flicks.
But the major draw for Flash Point is the action. Action choreographer Donny Yen said that he wanted to have a realistic feel for Flash Point, and he totally achieves it, and yet, the action is also quite exciting. He uses a mixed martial arts style. The fights are quick and brutal, often over before you know it. There are judo throws, kickboxing, wrestling moves, boxing, almost anything you can imagine. It’s interesting, and it looks like the actors are really going at it. There’s also some excellent parkour moves that bring to mind the old Jackie Chan stunts, and the newer Tony Jaa material from Ong Bak. But that’s far from the whole show. The gun battles are ferocious and beautifully choreographed. This isn’t just a bunch of guys standing around shooting guns at each other. It’s all about strategy. Unbelievably, even the bullet hits are good. I’d be willing to bet the filmmakers employed a mix of traditional blood packs and CGI, but the CGI is so good, it doesn’t stick out like a nun in a massage parlor. Hurrah! There’s even some hardhitting car stunts from Bruce Law.
Okay, so maybe Flash Point isn’t quite as exciting as some of those old balls out action pictures from the Golden Age of Hong Kong, and the character acting isn’t quite as entertaining, but this is damned good stuff.
Other than the somewhat perfunctory plot, and a little confusion in the beginning about who’s doing what to who, there’s very little to complain about. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that the most vicious bastard, Tony, didn’t die an excruciating death at the end of the movie, but into every life a little rain must fall.
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