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Thursday, March 3, 2022

NOU FO / RAGING FIRE (2021)

Hong Kong action specialist Benny Chan is well represented by his final film (only 58 when he died during post-production), threading the needle between elaborate fight sequences and something closer to a traditional policier where compromised cops work on the razor’s edge of legality.  Splitting genres and splitting fans, but the non-doctrinaire shouldn’t mind.  Donnie Yen is a rock as an incorruptible police detective, a bit older/a bit wiser, but reliably unbending when pushed to go light on criminals with connections or shade the truth in court testimony against fellow cops.  And it’s one of those former cops, Nicholas Tse, now out of jail who’s setting up an elaborate revenge involving players on both sides of the law that will test his one-time partner to the limit.  Not a lot of surprises in plot or characterization, though Chan & his co-writers seem to have digested many a Michael Mann pic in shading the relationship & meetings of the leads.*  Action sequences are the film’s real strength, exciting and largely CGI free, with one inner-city car chase (with add-on motorcycle) right in the middle of the film a particular standout.  (Only a final mano-a-mano showdown misses, long and anticlimactic.)  Special shout-out to Donnie Yen, pushing 60, stoic & still battle-worthy.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *But unlike Michael Mann, who promises the moon and delivers reheated pizza, Chan sticks honestly to his more limited menu.

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