Flash Point

Year:2007
Director:Wilson Yip Wai-Shun
Cast:Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Louis Koo Tin-Lok, Fan Bing-Bing, Collin Chou , Ray Lui Leung-Wai, Kent Cheng Juk-Si, Xing Yu, Lam Kwok-Bun, Law Lan, Ha Ping, Timmy Hung Tin-Ming, Tony Ho Wah-Chiu, Austin Wai Tin-Chi, Ai Wai
Description:
In Flash Point, Donnie
Yen is the man - and don't you forget it. The action
star is at his most powerful and preening in Flash
Point, the third collaboration between Yen and
director Wilson Yip. Unlike their previous films,
SPL and Dragon Tiger Gate, Flash
Point is a stripped-down action film, losing any
extra flab for what amounts to an eighty-seven minute
freight train of Donnie Yen goodness, starting with
muscular posing and ending with an extended finale
designed for Yen to apply maximum damage to his foes
and his environment. Meanwhile, there's no attempt
to wow us with complex emotions or narrative dexterity
- basically, this movie is a straight gunshot to the
heart, and does nothing fancy to subtract from its
simplistic aims. The result could probably not be
called a good film, but for its intended audience,
Flash Point is like a dose of crack. If you're
an action addict, then this movie will satiate your
needs. And at least it's not pretentious.
Yen is Inspector Ma, the
same protagonist from the 2005 action fan-favorite
SPL. Flash Point takes place prior to
Ma's involvement with Simon Yam, Sammo Hung, etc.,
so he's even more explosively angry than in that film,
having not been tempered by his unfortunate crippling
of a suspect . Ma gets vein-busting upset
thanks to his new predicament: partner Wilson is on undercover assignment, and the bad guys
he's assigned to are a particularly surly lot who
probably would have no hesitation about offing Wilson
if they knew he was a mole. Wilson is looking to bust
Archer , Tony , and Tiger ,
and has managed to ingratiate himself into their inner
circle. However, Wilson's existence in the gang is
precarious, a fact ably conveyed by Louis Koo's sweat,
which oozes from his pores along with the actor's
trademark overacting. The cops eventually use Wilson's
intel to nab Archer, and secure numerous witnesses
to testify. However, both Tony and Tiger are still
on the loose, and since both are kung-fu badasses,
nobody is truly safe.
However, Tony and Tiger are
just kung-fu badasses, and not supreme kung-fu
badasses like Inspector Ma, meaning they're doomed
once the film sheds its weak plot and aims for the
action. Flash Point has a simple story, littered
with stock characters and situations that lack creativity
and sometimes credibility. Basically, the bad guys
are obvious scumbags, while the good guys are righteous
do-gooders leashed by crappy bureaucracy. Ma is under
investigation because he's so prone to violence, and
his superior officers seem more concerned with pointless
protocol instead of actual crime fighting. Events
in Flash Point seldom possess any narrative
cleverness; more often than not, it's the stupidity
of the police force that gets the characters in continuing
trouble. The witnesses sometimes have no security
measures to ensure their safety, making it very easy
for the bad guys to pick them off one by one. Even
Ma and his loyal cop buddies are a little slow. You
would think somebody would consider protecting Wilson's
girlfriend , as
the bad guys could conceivably kidnap her to use as
a bargaining chip to prevent Wilson from testifying.
No dice. She's easily nabbed, leading to the film's
protracted action ending, which is full of kicks and
punches, but not much in the way of surprise. As storylines
go, Flash Point is as routine and unimaginative
as you can get.
But just when things look
bleak for Flash Point, the film unleashes its
ultimate asset: Donnie Yen. The Yenster shows up big
time, throwing his weight around both in front of
and likely behind the camera. Despite Wilson Yip's
name on the film, Flash Point feels like a
full-on Donnie Yen party, showing the action hero
at his most glorified best. There's less obvious posing
then in previous Yen-Yip collaborations, and nothing
in Flash Point approaches the egregious "flailing
arms" silliness of Dragon Tiger Gate. Still,
when it's time for Donnie Yen to take the spotlight,
he practically destroys his co-stars with his pronounced
physical overacting. Yen eats up the screen during
the film's climactic action finale, giving the audience
a face-full of Donnie Yen acting angry, righteous,
and above all, cool. The martial arts sequences seem
to have two purposes: A) to entertain the audience
with maximum impact, and B) to allow Donnie Yen the
chance to act like a supreme, self-anointed badass.
Granted, Yen does have the presence of an intense,
skilled fighter, so convincing the audience of his
badass status is not hard.
But can he do it without
engendering laughs from more aware audience members?
Unfortunately, the answer is: probably not. Donnie
Yen convinces when handling action, but his charisma
as an actual actor is occasionally lacking, and sometimes
even veers uncomfortably into laughable territory.
Yen is a remarkably showy actor, and too often appears
to be aware of his own seemingly super-cool appearance
- which is why it's so hard to take his screen presence
seriously. In Flash Point, we get the full
range of Donnie Yen overacting, especially during
the final fight with Collin Chou, which feels like
twenty minutes of Yen beating the crap out of someone
else with little or no chance that he will actually
lose. When pauses in the action do occur, it's usually
for some posturing or attitude that play as non-verbal
shorthand for, "Man, do I kick ass!" I believe that
he probably does kick ass, but the unintentional funny
factor is hard to completely ignore. Yen's movies
usually seem to be as much about the star as they
are about the film itself, such that they have a hard
time transcending their label as mere showcases for
Donnie Yen's manly image.
The above is especially true
in something like Flash Point, where the storyline
has been stripped down to almost nothingness. There
is a certain appeal to such a routine, clutter-free
narrative, as some movies like this - that is, only
barely plotted action blowouts - were fan favorites
back in the eighties. The film features your standard
cop themes, like justice, righteousness, and how police
brutality is largely excusable, but Flash Point
doesn't bother to add extra weight to its proceedings.
There is no "handover/reunion" pseudo-thematic stuff
like in SPL, and the pathos is largely perfunctory
and not felt; this movie has cops, bad guys, and lots
of people getting hurt, and that's practically all
the audience is made aware of. There is some minor
detail involving mothers , but even that becomes an
afterthought. In many ways, the film fails to engage,
and that could even be a plus. The filmmakers get
some points for serving up high-impact action in such
a no-nonsense form, and though it would have been
nice had a decent story been in their game plan, the
fact that there isn't means even more room for balls-to-the-wall
action.
And when the action is as
bone-crunching as it is here, do people really care
about story? The first two-thirds of Flash Point
is your basic plot set-up, introducing generic characters
and generic conflicts, and the film only occasionally
affects during that time. After that, it's action
city, as Donnie Yen goes postal on Xing Yu in a restaurant-set
showdown that could induce head trauma. After that,
the film races towards its head-smashing climax, with
the incredibly long one-on-one duel between Donnie
Yen and Collin Chou ranking up there for high-impact
bone trauma. Besides completely owning Chou with his
powerful legs , Yen
repeatedly smacks Chou into whatever stationary object
is nearby, e.g. cinder blocks, supporting beams, or
cement walls. Following that, Chou usually writhes
in pain on the floor, while Yen stands
around, waiting for Chou to get back up. Rinse and
repeat. Those who like to watch someone get smashed
into floors, walls, bricks, and beams while someone
else prances around victoriously should get a kick
out of Yen's punishment of Chou. Never has a man had
more trouble with architecture or flamboyant grandstanding
than Collin Chou.
It's action addicts - or
maybe action film apologists - who'll find the most
to like in Flash Point. This is far from good
filmmaking, but its purity as screen fighting junk
will make it review-proof for a good many. Sometimes
people just want action, and the fighting on display
in Flash Point is tough and hard enough to
satisfy. Beyond that, the film is no great shakes,
possessing sloppy plotting, noticeable anachronisms
, and an amount of overacting
that surely taxes any tolerable quota . Flash Point
also won't dethrone SPL as the Donnie Yen-Wilson
Yip collaboration of choice, as SPL had solid
acting and some actual surprise, plus it had the killer
Donnie Yen-Wu Jing alleyway duel. That fight was short,
sweet, and charged with an emotional energy that outshines
anything here. As martial arts vehicles go, Flash
Point is a satisfying enough diversion, but it
could easily have been better. However, with Dragon
Tiger Gate as a measure, it could also have been
much, much worse. Let's count our blessings.