Flashpoint

Flashpoint (Dou fo sin) combines the skills of Donnie Yen (producer, action director and star) with director Wilson Yip for their third film in just over as many years. Frantically paced, nonsensically scripted and impressively performed, this is an Asia action fan’s dream.

The film itself was conceived as a prequel to Yen’s immensely popular S.P.L. (Sha Po Lang) which starred Donnie, Collin Chou and Sammo Hung, and whilst the characters bare no resemblance to their S.P.L counterparts, the initial set-up of a maverick crime detective (Yen) on the trail of Triad gang led by a Vietnamese smuggler (Chou) and his erstwhile brothers appears to be entirely familiar.

Yen supplants a mole in the team’s midst and the double-crossing begins. Set in the years before the Hong Kong handover to mainland China, the setting appears to be entirely contemporary and only seems to serve to allow lawlessness that China would be little impressed to see in the current political climate and the world’s focus soon to be upon them (the film bombed hugely in its native Hong Kong).

The whole first hour of the film merely serves to set up the incredible last twenty minutes which showcases each actor’s physical prowess in a heady combination of Wushu and Jujitsu that has to be seen to be believed. The consistently misguided comedy aside (the pensioners going for a swim and Archer’s Mum birthday party and subsequent vomiting) mixed with some interestingly out subtitling (one character’s meted out revenge leading to severe head concussion is referred to as anosmia) does little to quell the heady rush of the action sequences and for a beery Friday night in this as a rental would tick all the boxes.

Extras: Making of Feature, Interview Gallery, Shooting Diary, Ultimate Fighters Feature, Hong Kong Gala Premiere, Deleted Scenes, Theatrical Trailer and Teaser TV Spots.

Released on 31st March 2008 by Showbox Media.

Written by Simon Cole.