Film: Flashpoint
Release date: 8th September 2008
Certificate: 18
Running time: 84 mins
Director: Yip Wai Shun
Starring: Donnie Yen, Colin Chou, Louis Koo
Genre: Martial Arts/Action/Crime
Studio: Cine Asia/Showbox
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
Yen and Yip reunite for this bruising follow-up/prequel to their earlier hit movie Kill Zone, which shows a thrilling progression in Yen as an action director. Can the same be said of Yip as cinematic storyteller?
Set in pre-Handover Hong Kong, Flashpoint tells the story of Inspector Ma (Yen), a ‘maverick’ (read: aggressive and heavy-handed) detective as he mounts a long-running operation against three Sino-Vietnamese brothers, led by the ruthless and cunning Tony (Chou), who have usurped the local Hong Kong Triads through aggression and brutality.
Meanwhile, Ma’s colleague, Wilson (Koo) is deep undercover with the gangsters, but his cover cannot last forever. As Wilson suffers the repercussions of indecisive leadership, it is up to Ma to put things right, using the ‘unorthodox methods’ that have consistently got him into trouble…
With Kill Zone signalling something of a return to ’old school’ Hong Kong filmmaking form (on-set stunts and fights not reliant on CGI effects), it was inevitable that a follow-up would come. From the outset, Flashpoint firmly establishes an aesthetic of ‘cool’, with Donnie Yen striding through a boxing gym to confront a nameless and unimportant criminal. Avoiding a wild hook, Yen employs a takedown and proceeds to wail on his opponent. The film then cuts to Yen as a talking head, as he explains that it’s “up to the judge” to decide whether or not his methods of arrest cross the line.
From there, the pace is maintained across a frenetic opening ten minutes, featuring a nightclub scene where Yen shows the gangsters who’s boss, quickly followed by a hard-hitting mass brawl in a driving range as the Sino-Vietnamese brothers depose the local villains. However, after earning its audience’s attention so well, Flashpoint very nearly squanders it with a sluggish plot devoid of either nuance or surprise (save a mid-film twist featuring what can only be described as “explosive stuffing”).
The principal problem with Flashpoint is its lack of identity within the Hong Kong crime film canon. Where Kill Zone cast Donnie Yen as a maverick cop haunted by an incident where he had indeed ‘gone too far’, giving his character an extra dimension of ‘haunted hero’, Flashpoint presents a protagonist who has yet to learn those lessons. As such we struggle to engage with his quest in the same way that we may have done. Without the sense that our hero is questioning his actions, his methods of ‘righting wrongs’ leaves the audience with a lot of unanswered questions.
Questions that would be answered if the film had a recognisable stance on the issues of violence and police brutality, or willingness to invite the audience to meditate on them as the credits roll. However, while stock superior and bureaucratic characters may judge or question Inspector Ma, the filmmakers seem loath to do so themselves. Director Wilson Yip brings neither discourse nor personal identity to the text, preferring instead to treat the story as merely a set-up for its climactic action sequence. This go-through-the-motions approach is unintentionally brought into focus during a mid-point fight sequence concluded with Ma repeatedly punching a clearly already dead villain, while the camera pans to the shocked faces of bystanders - a sudden and genuinely unsettling tonal shift that suggests Yip’s own directorial sensibilities are battering against the aesthetic walls of a Donnie Yen star vehicle.
Yen, as a leading man, lacks the preternatural likeability of a Jackie Chan, as well as the inherent righteousness of a Jet Li, but there’s no denying that he is now - in his mid-forties - coming into his own as a martial arts movie hero. Part of his appeal is his willingness to update his fighting style in every film, and Flashpoint takes zero-gravity strides on from Kill Zone, with its incorporation of ground-fighting that will make the film a delight for fans of UFC and MMA, as much as Hong Kong aficionados. Credit for this must go to Yen himself, who - as action director - shows keen awareness of real world martial arts trends, throwing everything into a climactic fight scene between himself and Colin Chou that deserves mention alongside the very best ever put on film. Regardless of Flashpoint’s stance on violence, there is no denying that the violence on offer is both brutally visceral and visually spectacular, and memorable in a way that its story simply is not.
While it is a notch below its predecessor in almost every other respect, there’s no denying that the climactic showdown between Donnie Yen and Colin Chou ranks alongside the best of Hong Kong action cinema. Had the story been more than an hour’s prelude to it, Flashpoint might have ascended to the pantheon of truly great Hong Kong crime films. It falls short, in the end, but Yen’s continuing innovation as a fight choreographer remains genuinely thrilling. JN
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