Three years after the success of Shock Wave, Herman Yau is back with a thematic sequel that doubled the first film’s budget and has now tripled its box-office take. Andy Lau is back in the lead – inevitably, in a different role – as Poon Sing-fung, a heroic bomb disposal expert of the EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal Bureau) who loses part of his leg in an explosion. Fitted with a prosthetic leg and having gone through an extensive and triumphant reeducation, he fully expects to return to the job to which he devoted himself body and soul, but is instead offered desk jobs or PR positions, as his superiors don’t want to take the risk of returning a disabled officer to the field. Enraged at the rejection, and at a society which undervalues the disabled, he quits the force, severing his relationships to his girlfriend Pong Ling (Ni Ni), an officer of the counter-terrorism unit, as well as his best friend and colleague Tung Cheuk-man (Lau Ching Wan) and their team. Cut to five years later, Poon is seen planting a bomb at a fancy reception; dozens of people die in the ensuing explosion, and he’s found unconscious at the crime scene. When he awakes, he has amnesia and can’t even remember who he is; the police suspects him of being a part of the terrorist organization known as ‘Vendetta’, responsible for a slew of bombings in the past months in Hong Kong. With only fragmented memories coming back to him, but convinced he is innocent, Poon escapes and tries to uncover the truth.
All posts tagged lau ching wan
SHOCK WAVE 2 (2020) review
Posted by LP Hugo on February 22, 2021
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2021/02/22/shock-wave-2-2020-review/
MY DEAR ELEPHANT (2019) review
In My Dear Elephant, his most light-hearted film since 2012’s The Great Magician, Lau Ching Wan plays the owner of a traveling circus whose star attraction is a trio of highly-trained elephants. But just as he hopes to bring more stability to his team by joining an in-development amusement park called Dreamland, he’s harassed by a plucky animal rights activist (You Jingru), whose ex-boyfriend (Pan Yueming) is none other than the co-owner of Dreamland. Shot three years ago, Shao Xiaoli’s film was finally released earlier this year, no doubt to scrape a few Yuan from the other circus elephant film of the moment, Disney’s Dumbo.
Posted by LP Hugo on June 2, 2019
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2019/06/02/my-dear-elephant-2019-review/
INTEGRITY (2019) review
After the over-the-top stylings of his Mainland undercover thriller Extraordinary Mission, Alan Mak returns home to the twisty psychological Hong Kong crime thriller. Co-produced by his brother-in-filmmaking Felix Chong, Integrity follows King (Lau Ching Wan), an officer of the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption, for those who’ve never seen a Hong Kong film of the past 10 years), who is grooming corporate accountant and whistleblower Lui (Nick Cheung) to testify in court against a tobacco trading company and a customs officer (Anita Yuen) accused of collusion and bribery in smuggling cigarettes onto the black market. But on the day of the hearing, Lui absconds to Australia, seemingly struck with cold feet. But as King’s colleague (and estranged wife) Shirley (Karena Lam) is dispatched to Australia to bring him back, it soon appears that he’s much more than a simple whistleblower, and his escape to Australia isn’t motivated by fear.
Posted by LP Hugo on April 26, 2019
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2019/04/26/integrity-2019-review/
DEALER/HEALER (2017) review
Lawrence Ah Mon’s Dealer/Healer tells the true story of Chen Hua (Lau Ching Wan), a drug dealer and drug addict turned philanthropist, from his teenage years in the Tsz Wan Shan district of Kowloon, the start of a lasting friendship with fellow hellraisers Cat (Max Zhang) and Bullhorn (Lam Ka Tung) and of a romance with plucky waitress Kerou (Jiang Yiyan), to his time as a drug dealer in the infamous Kowloon Walled City, where he encountered drug lord Halei (Louis Koo) and reached the nadir of his addiction, and then to his reformed life – following a few years in prison – and his work in a Christian rehabilitation centre, while still mediating mob disputes to limit damage and avoid violence.
Posted by LP Hugo on July 11, 2017
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2017/07/11/dealerhealer-2017-review/
CALL OF HEROES (2016) review
One of our most anticipated films of 2016, Call of Heroes is a neo-western set in China during the Warlords era (beginning of the 20th century). Blood-thirsty, demented Commander Cao (Louis Koo), son of Warlord Cao (Sammo Hung) rides into the village of Pucheng, where he kills three people at random. He’s arrested by sheriff Yang (Lau Chin Wan) and sentenced to death, but his second-in-command Zhang (Wu Jing) soon arrives, issuing an ultimatum to the people of Pucheng: to release Cao or to be massacred. But Sheriff Yang stands by his verdict, helped in the face of growing adversity by a wandering swordsman (Eddie Peng), who once was Zhang’s comrade-in-arms.
Posted by LP Hugo on January 3, 2017
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2017/01/03/call-of-heroes-2016-review/
HEARTFALL ARISES (2016) review
A film as grandiose and nonsensical as its title, Ken Wu’s Heartfall Arises follows John Ma (Nicholas Tse), a police detective who killed a serial killer known as The General (Gao Weiguang), but got fatally wounded in the exchange of gunfire, and thus had to be transplanted with the heart of the very man he killed. Months later, it seems a copycat of The General is at work, and John Ma himself feels his new heart is affecting his behavior: he even has memories of a woman (a woefully underused Tong Liya) he never met. Now stop the copycat he must join forces with criminal psychologist Calvin Che (Lau Ching Wan), who himself happens to have been transplanted with The General’s liver! But then why isn’t the film called Liverfall Arising?
Posted by LP Hugo on December 22, 2016
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2016/12/22/heartfall-arises-2016-review/
THE VANISHED MURDERER (2015) review
After 2012’s stylish and entertaining – and much less derivative than it’s been made out to be – The Bullet Vanishes, Lau Ching Wan’s inspector Song Donglu (Lau Ching Wan) is back, his adventures still written by Yeung Sin Ling, produced by Derek Yee and directed by Law Chi Leung. This time, Song investigates a series of strange suicides: factory workers throwing themselves from atop buildings, to protest their exploitative employer, corrupt businessman Gao Minxiong (Guo Xiaodong). Song surmises that they’ve been ‘forced’ to commit suicide, and has reasons to think that Fu Yuan (Jiang Yiyan), a woman whom he brought to justice after she almost got away with murdering her abusive husband, and who counseled him from her prison cell in The Bullet Vanishes, may have something to do with what’s happening. Indeed, she recently escaped from prison, and it was to bring her back there that Song was in town. Other suspects include Hua (Lam Ka Tung), a professor with a morphine addiction who has been in contact with Fu Yuan and shares her appetite for criminology, and Mao Jin (Rydhian Vaughan), who may or may not be a dirty cop. As the plot thickens, Song can count on the help of Chang Sheng (Li Xiaolu), a woman he left at the altar years ago, and who’s sticking with him, hoping to get closure.
Posted by LP Hugo on April 6, 2016
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2016/04/06/the-vanished-murderer-2015-review/
INSANITY (2014) review
David Lee’s second film after the little-seen teen horror thriller Yes, I Can See Dead People, Insanity is produced and co-written by Derek Yee, and tells of Fan (Lau Ching Wan), who became a neurotic shell of a man following the death of his child, and frequently lets out his anger and grief on his wife Wai Ling (Michelle Ye), forbidding her to go out and suspecting her at every turn. Until one night, in a fit of jealous rage, he accidentally kills her by pushing her out of a window. He’s declared insane in court and committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he’s placed under the care of Dr. Chow (Huang Xiaoming) a young and promising doctor who is fast rising to the top of his field, though he’s neglecting his girlfriend Bo Yi (Fiona Sit) in the process. Three years later, Chow vouches for Fan’s release against the advice of his colleague Dr. Lui (Alex Fong), declaring him cured. Life on the outside proves difficult for the former madman, as his former mother-in-law (Paw Hee Ching) keeps harassing him and guilt remains vivid. One night, while attempting to commit suicide, he accidentally kills a homeless junkie. But Dr. Chow, who’s close to becoming hospital director, is determined to safeguard his reputation : if word got out that the patient he vouched for actually killed someone else after being released, the consequences for his career would be dire. And so he covers up the junkie’s death, and things start going from bad to worse.
Posted by LP Hugo on September 6, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/09/06/insanity-2014-review/
OUT OF INFERNO (2013) short review
One of two high-profile firefighting films that came out in the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014, the Pang Brothers’ Out of Inferno is a disaster film that plays by all the most well-worn rules of the book. It has a typical ‘wrong place, wrong time’ set up as it takes place on the most humid day of the past 50 years in Guangzhou, in a building whose air conditioning inexplicably malfunctions. And before the fire erupts, forthcoming human drama is set up, that will complement the mayhem, and a roster of diverse characters played by familiar faces is introduced. At the center there’s two estranged brothers : Tai Kwan (Lau Ching Wan) is a sturdy, no-nonsense but conflicted fireman called in to deal with the fire, and whose pregnant wife (Angelica Lee) happens to be visiting her obstetrician in the building ; and Keung (Louis Koo), a former fireman himself and now the building’s director of security is also on the spot, holding a fundraiser whose guests he soon has to take to safety. There’s also a diamond-cutter (Hui Siu Hung) whose employees take advantage of the fire to steal the merchandise, a family guy (Eddie Cheung Siu Fai) whose wife is opening a shop in the building, and a few others. This is an efficiently-directed disaster film with often impressive CGI (though nothing ground-breaking on that front), that suffers from an intense and ever growing sense of ‘been there, done that’ as it borrows from countless films, plays out in completely predictable fashion and possesses little originality in a genre that needs originality to generate any kind of relevance or excitement. The chemistry between Lau and Koo, in their 12th pairing, is the film’s saving grace, but in the end nothing is likely to stick in the spectator’s mind. **1/2
Posted by LP Hugo on October 27, 2014
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2014/10/27/767/
THE GREAT MAGICIAN (2011) short review
In the Warlord era after the Chinese Revolution, a revolutionary group aims to kill a powerful warlord (Lau Ching Wan) to take a step towards reinstating the republic. Said warlord has imprisoned a woman (Zhou Xun) whom he wants to make his new wife, but can’t bring himself to force into mariage. The arrival of a skilled magician (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) with ties to the revolutionary group and a shared past with the imprisoned woman, marks the start of a game of deceit and illusions. Visually, this is an absolutely stunning movie, gorgeously lit, awash in lush production design, and elegantly directed by Derek Yee in a diversion from his more serious contemporary fare. The magician’s scenic tricks are wonderfully executed with seamless CGI and are a joy to behold. Leung, Lau and Zhou are firmly in their comfort zone and their interaction is one of the film’s pleasures, while fun cameos by Tsui Hark and Daniel Wu (among others) spice up the proceedings. Too bad then that the film is so narratively muddled and rhythmically challenged ; the plot proves too meandering for such a playful concoction, which results in an overlong runtime. Still, an enjoyable piece of classy fluff. ***
Posted by LP Hugo on February 1, 2014
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2014/02/01/the-great-magician-2011-short-review/
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