Flashpoint (Hong Kong. 2007)

Director: Wilson Yip

Drama is not your friend. It's a dirty word in the minds of martial arts fans. They hate it. It should be banished to a dungeon to train till it is fit and ready for combat. Instead, every director wants to give the fights “meaning” and this translate to heavy handed music, constipated like expressions of grief and wet rimmed eyes, as they pummel their foes to a bloody pulp. No one is more guilty of this then martial arts star/director/choreographer Donnie Yen. All of his films try to be something more, something ground breaking, something that isn’t just a tussle of epic proportions. As a director sometimes his arti-er sensibilities come together (The flash-back heavy ‘Legend of the Wolf’) and sometimes they fail miserably (The mopey heroic bloodshed ‘Ballistic Kiss) but all in all he has a distinct and fast paced style that works as pure combat. He did a fantastic job working on Sha Po Lang (Killzone) and this film ‘Flashpoint’ is his third team up with director Wilson Yip (After the fantasy kung-fu misfire ‘Dragon Tiger Gate) in the crime/cop sub-genre that put them both on the map. Did they learn their lesson to tone down the wooden drama and up the martial arts quotient?

"Ma Jun (Donnie Yen), a cop known for dispensing justice during arrests, teams with Hua Sheng (Louis Koo), who's undercover, to try to bring down three merciless Vietnamese brothers Archer (Ray Lui), Tony (Collin Chou), and Tiger (Xing Yu) who are running a smuggling ring in the months before the mainland's takeover of Hong Kong."

Wilson Yip is a maestro behind the camera when the action heats up. Everything swoops and zooms in such an organic fashion that you can’t help but be caught up in the festivities. Donnie Yen’s choreography is also at the top of its game, with a nice mix of wild fist slamming, fanciful kicks and Ultimate Fighting grappling locks Together give birth to (arguably) the greatest final action scene of the year…

The problem is the other eighty minutes.

Horrible. Drama. One day someone’s going to have to go tap Mr. Yen on the shoulder and go “Listen, you look really intense when things get violent, but please, for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to be an act!” That person will then have their arms and legs snapped off in five different places. It doesn’t help that the rest of the cast is padded out by always perfectly tanned Louis Koo and a few token female mainland super-models. They all go through the motions as someone waves their paycheck off-screen. Only fan-favorite Collin Chou gives it his all as the main baddie. His work during the final fist fight is strong enough to make it classic.

After SPL, Flashpoint can’t help but come off as a miss-fire. Thing should move TOO fast in Hong Kong film, not drearily slow. Skip to the end of this, watch the amazing action scene and keep it at that.

NOTE: Donnie Yen swears up and down he directs all his own action scenes but you should take that with a grain of salt. Yen is a well known Ego mania who would probably swear up and down that he designed his mother…but I do like the guy regardless.

DVD: Not as "Ultimate" as it sounds, the Dragon Dynasty release of Flashpoint is still impressive for the simple fact that they got Donnie Yen to particpate exclusively for the realase. The udio commentary with HK film connoiseur Bey Logan is better then the usual DD commentary because this time someone who was on set gets to comment on the action on screen. The rest of the special features on the second disc are stricly fluffy EPK stuff or extremely short. The alternate ending Donnie mentions in the commentary track is nowhere to be seen.