Hey everyone. Capone in Austin here.
Day 2 of the stupendous event that is Fantastic Fest 2010 kicked off for me with the Hong Kong police action extravaganza FIRE OF CONSCIENCE, from director Dante Lam, whose more recent works SNIPER and THE BEAST STALKER I am unfamiliar with, so his latest was my first exposure to his hyper-stylized-but-still-gritty work. That said, with FIRE OF CONSCIENCE, Lam has constructed a twisting, intelligent, hardcore piece loaded to the gills with deafening explosions, messy hand-to-hand combat, and ferocious gunplay that seems to relish every time a bullet splatters through a body. I loved that this is not one of those films where thousands of rounds of ammunition are spent without a single person getting hit. Nearly every pistol shot, every automatic weapon's burst connects with an alarming frequency.
In many ways (perhaps a few too many), FIRE OF CONSCIENCE reminded me a lot of INFERNAL AFFAIRS. The two main characters are cops--one who is "clean," but still ignores protocol when it comes to things like interrogation; and another who secretly works for the criminal element in an effort to pay off his enormous debt. The good cop is Manfred (Leon Lai), whose pregnant wife (seen in flashbacks) was horribly eviscerated trying to stop a pick pocket on a bus. Since her death, Manfred's methods have become even more uncontrollable. The bad cop is the younger Ji Kee (Richie Ren), an inspector working for the equivalent of an organized crime task force. In other words, he's looking for men just like the ones he works for. Oops. The two come together on a case when two police officers and a hooker are killed, and Kee needs help with the investigation.
Director Lam does an admirable job ramping up the action during the course of the film--starting with grander and grander gun battles in very public places (like a restaurant), resulting in high body counts, to more sprawling and occasionally insane battles involving grenades, suicide bombers, and, my favorite, gunplay in the middle of a building fire while a woman is giving birth. And they don't spare us seeing the birth in graphic detail.
As much as I enjoyed watching Manfred defy department regulations at every turn, there is something about the Kee character that defies conventional police dramas. He's not a bad guy at all, and I'm sure his thinking is to pay of the nasty men he owes money to and then get back into the business of fighting crime. That would never actually happen, but his intensions are good and Ren's performance as this fractured man is as solid as anything I've seen this year. FIRE OF CONSCIENCE is a roaring, body-ripping, bloody mess of a great time.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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