Donnie Yen
As everyone would have already known, Donnie Yen makes his appearance here as the macho, tough, fighting machine super-cop with his trademark SPL leather jacket, rugged jeans and tight white singlet. As a bonus for his female fans and human growth hormone smugglers, he has decided to take his clothes off, clad only in his faded blue jeans during a scene at the beach. On the other hand, Louis Koo also took his clothes off, but this act only made Donnie looked better. His tanned, skinny frame is no match for Donnie's six-packs, well-toned body and enormous biceps, which is enough to stop Daniel Craig from coming out of the waters.
Louis Koo and Miscellaneous Crew
Louis Koo plays the undercover cop. He is recruited to be like Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars movies or the comic relief for an over-intense plot. There's nothing impressive about his role. I find it very predictable to see him get bashed up together with his lady friend. Which Hong Kong movie’s undercover cop doesn't get bashed up? Then, there is this guy whom I last noticed in the 80s, acting in many TVB sitcoms (such as The Bund), playing the gangster leader. His acting style reminded me of the bad guy leader in Fatal Contact. There's nothing great about his role in the movie. Of course, there is the no-brainer, muscle-bound fighter called “Tiger” and the superior fighter called “Tony”. Inspector Wong (played by Kent Cheng) plays the third-party inspector-cum-advisor between undercover cops and real cops.
What Donnie did...
Donnie Yen did not really do much fights during the first quarter of the movie. The movie focused too much on Louis Koo's life with the gangsters. Yet again, I felt that Donnie didn't really played much of the main role, which he was supposed to. I didn't feel that he was that important until somewhere in the middle of the movie where the action only began.
My personal advice
My advice is simple – don't worry too much about the plot of this movie, because it's pure crap and highly predictable. Stay for the fight scenes.
Moment-of-truth – Did my ten bucks go down the drain?
Certainly, I wouldn't say that it's a complete waste. The movie started off too predictably but that was no big deal. I still think my ten bucks was worth the very original and totally destructive fighting scenes.
Tiger Vs Donnie Yen
The second-level martial arts bad guy goes face-to-face with the super fighter cop. This adrenaline pumping fighting scene is worth watching for the raw battle of supremacy between Tiger and Iron Monkey. The chase scene with Donnie and Tiger starting from the hospital right down to the food stalls was like watching Jackie Chan and Casino Royale, except much less extreme. Donnie showed off the results of twenty years of training by executing a perfect jumping back-kick that immediately smashed a wooden round table into a perfect half and sending Tiger flying a few hundred metres away. Bruce Lee would have rolled in his grave upon hearing this. Donnie pulled out many of his SPL grappling and jujitsu techniques. Only this time he added more Muay Thai and a lot of Shaolin Boxing to make it more realistic.
Both men fought with courage, and as predicted, the bad guy died.
Gun battle – exchange of hostages
There is a gun battle between one man with a pistol versus five or more gangsters with machine guns and snipers coming right out of a typical John Woo movie. Certainly, you can't explain any logic in this. Some of the gun battle scenes are quite ridiculous and doesn't make much sense. Thus, just ignore the gun scenes because what we actually really wanted is to watch the hand-to-hand combat scenes.
Donnie Vs Tony – end battle
This is one of those scenes that my ten bucks are all about. And it's also one of the scenes that the trailers included to lure us to watch it. This is like a classic, modern remake of Fist Of Legend, where the hand-to-hand combat are very realistic, making use of grappling, locking, wrestling, throwing and street fighting. It's like a complete manual to breaking bones and breaking stuff. They started off fighting in a very small room on the first storey, breaking wooden cabinets and rusted window frames. Due to the economy of restricted movements here, there is a lot of locking and grappling involved. That's until they are flung to the lower ground, where they have plenty of space to fight. This is where Donnie uses Muay Thai knees, his trademark aerial combo kicks, perfect roundhouse executions and also lightning speed punches. They really used the surrounding well, breaking bricks and other stuff to show massive raw power. Donnie also managed to show off a Bruce Lee shuffle pose before executing a Bruce Lee powerhouse side kick to finish off his opponent.
Flash Point is recommended for viewing because of the excellent hand-to-hand combat, which from a martial artist’s point of view is very unique and realistic. But never take the plot too seriously because it's not a great story. For a better balance in martial arts action, story, dialogue and acting, watch SPL, not Flash Point.
(It's like watching Doom for the few minutes of 3D action scene.)
I would give Flash Point 3/5, which is Good because it's still worth watching, although not a big deal. |
