Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Thomas Tokmenko A variety of Hong Kong's top-tier male actors come to the forefront in this modern gangster tale of iconic issues: moral consequences & power struggles. The cinematography is gritty and stylized to the point where you can breathe in the tension on-screen, which properly sets the tone and makes this one of the biggest positive attributes for the movie. The HK film legend Sammo Hung plays arguably his darkest role as a crime lord who takes pity on no one and crushes everything outside his personal interests. Another HK film veteran Simon Yam, is the leader of a group of detectives who will do anything to bring Sammo down regardless of police protocols. The plot is fairly simple as a cat & mouse chase ensues throughout the nighttime ambiance of downtown Hong Kong sparking a blood-feud between detectives and gangsters. The film excels in creating emotional drama between characters and impressing the audience with snowballing suspense that explodes in the third act. An incredible martial arts display happens here, thanks to action masters Donnie Yen, Wu Jing, and Sammo Hung. Unfortunately the melodrama is exaggerated to the brink of absurdity, even within the bounds of other HK crime films, and you'll become tired of seeing extended shots of concluding moral quandaries. Even so you'll glance over the flaws thanks to the charisma and superb fight choreography of the lead actors. The story, albeit unoriginal, is genuinely interesting. You'll be sucked in the drama meanwhile becoming emotionally invested in the detective squad. A fresh entry in the long-running crime genre from HK. -8/10

p-stepien Hong Kong lives under the shadow rule of crime lord Wong Po (the ageless Sammo Hung Kam-Bo). This reign was thought to have ended with evidence enough to put him in jail, but the key witness is killed together with his wife. The detective leading the case Chan Kwok Chung (Simon Yam) adopts the orphaned child of the victims and promises a no-holds-barred revenge. Time however is short, as Chung is diagnosed with brain cancer. This forces his hand to take an approach which is borderline lawless.With less than two days left before he has to retire Chung and his team of elite police decide to take matters into their own hands and stop at nothing to get their man (supplanting evidence, killing weak links to fabricated charges and terrorising witnesses). This however does not fit well with the replacement inspector Ma Kwun (Donnie Yen), who confronts the team about their methods...A dastardly movie trying to sway in the direction of "Infernal Affairs" with a martial arts twist to it, it does manage to imprint a touch of class to the story with some almost art-house scenes and underline it with one terrific fight scene in a back alley (Donnie Yen vs Jacky Wu is quite intense and the length of sequences that go on without cuts / montages is impressive).Nonetheless the movie fails badly in the basics. Elements of back-story are constantly fed into the story in an attempt to flesh out characters, their motivations and add some dramatic punch. However these are poorly dealt with adding false notes throughout and seem forcibly attached severely limiting the dramatic flow of the movie. Below par melodramatic dialogues don't help proceedings as do severe plot flaws.The most damning is the attempt to manipulate video data in order to frame Wong Po for murder, when any sane policeman would have just used the available material to press charges for attempted murder and complicity to murder (both actions evidently filmed on tape without necessity to manipulate the video). Additionally since when is a videotape with someone hitting a man with a golf club followed by a shot of his associate shooting a bullet into the guys brain not enough to put someone in jail? These aren't the only such situations, which scream lazy scriptwriting.The movie does end with a sucker-punch (albeit preceded by a laughable not-checking-if-the-guy-you-beat-up-is-actually-dead scene) that deservedly gets a lot of praise, but all in all is too little, too late to actually repair the faulty unbelievable story.

the_real_smile I read the reviews on IMDb, one superlative after another was used to describe how good this movie was. After some good movies like Kung Fu Hustle, Kung Pow and Shaolin Soccer I was really in the mood for another great martial art movie. Well, let me tell you the true story. The script of the movie is what we call very thin, sometimes stupid and let's not forget the stupid in between scenes or did I used the word stupid already? The latter could be bearable if the movie wasn't so incredibly boring, The action scenes, some described as the best of the last decade are not bad, but to call them good? They reminded me of 80's martial art movies fighting scenes with one big exception, in the 80's the scenes were good. Save your money and watch Kung Fu Hustle, Kung Pow or Shaolin Soccer instead.

rhitwick Its a pleasure to watch Donnie Yen fight.(Isn't it a bit similar with Flash Point? Now, don't come after me, It just seemed to me :-D )WOW!!! Very strong story, seriously, after Ip Man, I found this is more a good story based movie of Donnie Yen. Obviously better than Flash Point and Dragon Tiger Gate. Very complex and twisted story line. And acting of both the leading men are commendable. Though fight scenes are less they compensate when they are there. Its a bit brutal for such movies, specially a few killing scenes, normal viewers may not digest it. And, I think, this brutality gives the vengeance a new level. Story is a bit in line with "Sympathy for Mr. vengeance" but not that intelligent. Few scenes raise strong emotions.Only complains are, less fight scenes. Come on, its Donnie Yen I can demand him fighting more than he talks. In a few scenes the movie tried to be arty, symbolic, which just, simply failed. Not at all required. They just increased the length but did not add anything.