Raging Fire 2021 - KUNG FU KINGDOM
Donnie Yen portrays Hong Kong cop Bong Cheung, with Nicholas Tse playing his old friend, turned sworn enemy, Yau Kong-Ngo.
Qin Lan also appears as Cheung’s wife Anna Lam, with Ray Lui as Hong Kong police chief Yiu Yeuk-sing and Ben Yuen playing fellow police official Sze-to Kit.
Henry Mak, Yu Kang, German Cheung, and Tony Wu play Ngo’s associates Chiu Chi-keung, Mok Yik-chuen, Chu Yuk-ming, and Law Kim-wah, while Chris Collins
plays Sargeant Rock USMC. Hong Kong screen legend, Simon Yam also pops in for a cameo as a police official.
Bong Cheung has spent years as a dedicated, stalwart officer in the Hong Kong Police Department, but his time on the force has come with personal heartache.
Years earlier, a group of Cheung’s fellow officers, led by Yau Kong-Ngo, were charged with excessive force in a police brutality case. Though it destroyed him to do so, Cheung’s dedication to the law led him to testify against his friends in court, leading to Ngo and his fellow officer’s incarceration.
Following the release of Ngo and his associates from prison, Cheung hopes they, along with himself and Ngo, can make a fresh start. However, as Cheung dives into a case that should’ve been a simple sting operation only for a rival gang to interfere, it gradually becomes clear from Ngo’s connection to it that the grudge he holds against his old friend is anything but healed.
It feels like it’s been ages since Hong Kong has been photographed as gorgeously as it is in “Raging Fire”, and the film’s cinematography paradoxically captures the underlying themes of the movie as a police action drama.
Pristine, shiny, and pure on the surface, but with a dark side lurking beneath, Cheung fights for the best of what an honest defender of the law can be, and Ngo and his friends bitter, vengeful, and having lost all faith in the system they upheld.
The greatest villains are the heroes of their own stories, and Nicholas Tse is a dark and tragic one as Ngo. For a movie as driven by pulse-pounding action as “Raging Fire” is (we’ll get to that in a second), the courtroom scene of Cheung testifying against his fellow officers is gut-wrenchingly heartbreaking for him and the film’s emotional core.
Ngo’s graduation from bad cop to terrorist marks the point of no return once he gets out, and anyone who came in hungry for Benny Chan’s final fireworks show can gleefully prepare to buckle up.
Chan’s final movie is a whirlwind of wild, stunt-filled, and powerful action that could’ve come right out of Hong Kong’s 80’s and 90’s golden age.
Powered by Cheung’s inner turmoil of wanting to reconcile with an old colleague and knowing it isn’t meant to be, the movie’s car chases, kung fu, and gun fu blast pandemic-era depression away as the city itself becomes a war zone.
Stunts of the seemingly death-defying variety are the bread and butter of “Raging Fire”, not the least of which is a battle of fists in a high speed motorcycle-car chase that’s right alongside “The Villainess” and “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” in vehicular hand-to-hand battles.
“Raging Fire” hedges a bit more towards polish than fecundity on the pure martial arts side of things, but it never fails to deliver. Innovation is the name of the game in any Donnie Yen movie, and Cheung holding off an angry slum mob single-handedly with a kevlar vest wrapped around one hand has that written all over it.
The general Hong Kong cop movie comparisons between the two aside, the parallels Donnie himself has drawn to “Sha Po Lang” and “Flash Point” are a cheque ready to be cashed in Cheung and Yau’s final confrontation.
Coming after a movie full of bombings, shootings, and hostage situations, it’s the year’s best martial-arts battle royale, and a tear-jerker in its own right – to be followed immediately after by more gut-wrenching emotions and tears to be shed in the film’s Benny Chan tribute over the end-credits.
“Raging Fire” is like an action movie a generation or two removed from its time, and for all of you who are still transfixed in love with the golden 80’s age of Hong Kong action cinema, you’ll be glad to know that this is a blast from the past in all the best ways.
As an appetizer for Donnie Yen saddling up with the extremely stacked “John Wick: Chapter 4” next year, the alarm of “Raging Fire” hits a five with ease, delivering a final, emotional rollercoaster of action from one of the best in the business with supreme and heartfelt reverence.
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