Raging Fire (2021)

In a final swan song only director Benny Chan could deliver, Raging Fire is a quintessential modern Hong Kong cinematic action experience, powered by an incredible dual lead performance and propelled by dynamic and explosive action set pieces. 

 

Director: Benny Chan

Notable Cast: Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Jeana Ho, Ray Lui, Patrick Tam, Ben Lam, Chris Collins, Ken Lo, Simon Yam

 

During the final action sequence, an epiphany came to me. The culminating chess game between the two leads of the film, Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse, erupts into a full Michael Mann street war. On one side, cops in Kevlar vests and tactical gear. They storm the streets of Hong Kong, determined to disrupt the burglary in progress. On the other side, sharply suited villains armed to the teeth with automatic rifles and grenades aiming to make off with a significant heist, and nothing - not even an army of well-armed police officers, will stand in their way. It’s an explosive set-piece, erupting in rollicking explosions, showers of glass, and concussive blasts of gunfire where no character is safe and the tension has built to snarling intensity. 

 

That’s not the epiphany. That’s just the setup. 

 

Paradox (2017)

Director: Wilson Yip

Notable Cast: Louis Koo, Wu Yue, Tony Jaa, Chris Collins, Gordon Lam, Ken Lo, Jacky Choi Kit, Stephy Tang Lai-Yan, Chan Hon-Na, Vittaya Pansingram

Also Known As: SPL: Paradox

Wilson Yip has become one of the more interesting creative forces to arrive in the modern era from the Chinese film industry. Both as a director and producer, he has had a hand in creating some of the most iconic franchises in the last 20 years from China and his work with the iconic Donnie Yen truly skyrocketed the talented actor and martial artist into stardom. Yet, he doesn’t necessarily play things safe with his films. His latest, released under the title Paradox in English, is a ‘spin off’ of one of these franchises, the popular SPL films. While Paradox has yet to receive an official US release - for the record, the SPL films were retitled as Kill Zone for the US release so it may or may not acquire that title too, it’s a film that certainly should. It’s perhaps the weakest of the three SPL films thus far, but it’s still a film that dabbles in a lot of interesting dark territory with some stellar performances and blisters its audience with impressive action courtesy of the legendary Sammo Hung.

Operation Mekong (2016)

Director: Dante Lam

Notable Cast: Zhang Hanyu, Eddie Peng, Carl Ng, Ken Lo, Pawarith Monkolpisit, Jonathan Wu

Many of the early trailers for Operation Mekong made the film look something like a military action thriller, powered by a dramatic ‘based on true events’ plot, and packed with big name stars throwing their best performances to earn awards. In many ways, yes, this is the film you are going to see with Operation Mekong. It’s certainly all of those things to an extent. However, that’s not all it is either. There was a certain expectation that went with the tone of the trailers that seemed to mix Platoon with a more modern day Lone Survivor spin and Operation Mekong is a bit more than that…and a bit less. Dante Lam’s latest action extravaganza is more John Woo and less Oliver Stone in its approach to the story, blending in high octane block buster action sequences with military dramatic touches. So it is less, in the idea of an impactful and emotional punch categories, but it is certainly more in the insane cheesy action categories. Operation Mekong ultimately comes off as a slightly mixed effort in its writing and characters, but it makes up for a lot of its larger flaws by being skull shattering action packed and tense. When it’s boiled down, this is really the film I should have expected and I still enjoyed the hell out of it, even if it doesn’t quite match the dramatic heights that Dante Lam has reached in previous films.