Watch Firestorm For Free

It is a performances centric movie

Fresh and Exciting

Admirable film.

Absolutely the worst movie.

First of all, don't get fooled by the title or the description of the press release. There is no storm in this movie. I was expecting action sequences in the key of Korean movies like the drama-thriller ''Tidal Wave'' which takes place during a mega tsunami or the spy thriller ''Typhoon'' but ''Firestorm'' turns out to be a more conventional thriller. This movie may not be very unique but it's a quite entertaining two hours for fans of the action-thriller genre.The story where a veteran police officer and his assistants face a notorious thief and his cruel gang is nothing new either but the movie includes a couple of side stories. Some people may say that these side stories are only hiding the weak main plot and rather distracting but I thought they were what made this movie a little bit better than just average. The relationship between a naive criminal who wants to leave his past behind and start all over again with his proud but sad girlfriend is really touching. This side story adds some emotional depth to the movie. The story of an undercover agent and his autistic daughter is also quite intense as it turns from a passionate story to the grisliest element of the entire movie which I found hard to digest but absolutely intriguing. The acting from the secondary actors is very good while the main actors Andy Lau and Hu Jun are not as outstanding.An important element of this movie is obviously the fast-paced action sequences. Some of them are well filmed and really breathtaking. One can really see that these scenes were filmed by experts and that there is a solid budget behind the movie. I'm not a fan of CGI effects but the special and visual effects are bearable to well done in this movie. On the other side, some of these sequences are overused, repetitive and feel artificially stretched towards the end of the movie. Some of them are simply over the top even though these scenes are at least never becoming ridiculous slapstick elements as it's the case in several contemporary Hollywood blockbusters like ''A Good Day To Die Hard'' or ''Fast & Furious 6''. One really gets the impression that the action sequences and side stories try to hide the ordinary main plot which fails to come around with true surprises.If you are feeling for a fast-paced and professionally shot action- thriller, you can't go wrong with this movie. Anybody who's expecting something more like a great plot, outstanding acting or revolutionary effects should watch another movie.

There are 2 ways to be disengaged by this movie: 1) Has to do with reality - as Hong Kong people protest the corruption of the government it makes it seem like the deeds of criminals robbing banks less important, if not infinitely small...2) But societal politics aside, this movie continues a horrendous trend of Hong Kong police action flicks trying so hard to be over the top and out-do better precedents, it misses the mark by being ludicrous beyond belief. Andy Lau is simply too old to be blown off his feet as many times as it happens. Others have noted the ridiculous CGI bullet exchanges with the warped sound effects... A very violent movie with no reason except to be very violent...The longer you hang with this movie the more mind-numbing it becomes and points to the time we live in: while the real world is engulfed in mass inhumanity to man, the fake world of movies, either in Hong Kong or Hollywood, insists on churning out violent stupidity that serves not as escapism nor entertainment...Just twisted dung trying to make a buck...

the prior reviewer wrote " a noteworthy lead role performance from andy lau ", or something of the sort. ...uhhhh, i'm sorry but, nottt! there was actually a very noteworthy performance but it didn't come from andy, i think he tried( he also produced ) but just wasn't up for a above average performance. unfortunately, he was just average and that was one of two things that kill a potentially great action genre movie. my other gripe with the movie is that even though every action scene was performed in top-notch form, a couple of them were just way way over the top to the point that it make me snicker. on top of that there were another couple of action scenes that were very very hard to believe. the tracer bullets i think were more for the viewers of the movie....now, for the good. lam ka tung in a break-out leading man role finally. if lam wasn't in this movie, it would've been a disaster. he was a joy to watch and hes been a little better in other movies but never in the leading role.even though i mentioned before that some of the action was too unbelievable, there were two that were very very memorable. there were a lot of action scenes and every one was well done, as campy as some of them were.there was a very pretty leading lady who didn't get much screen time, a couple of big time actors in the leading villain roles ( ray lui and hu jun ), plus a whole slew of solid character actors. the cinematography was decent and if andy lau had turned in a grittier performance it still would've been a great action movie, even with some campy action scenes.even with all its faults " firestorm ", is still a good action movie and there was some tension and gripping scenes in the movie. still too bad though..., it could've been a special one.

Hong Kong cinema continues the trend set by Hollywood in glamourising violence, explosions crime and guns... some scenes look straight out of video games like Call of Duty. The action scenes are so violent, they took on an almost incredulous comical turn, Andy Lau's character was seemingly an immortal in disguise who survived more than a credible amount of car crashes, bomb/grenade blasts, direct gun fire and jumping out of high rise (sometimes exploding) buildings. There is a thinly veiled attempt to weave in a morality story about a pragmatic and too-late-to-repent criminal but it was a little simplistic, although the scenes were moderately salvaged by the strong acting of Chen Yao. Most interesting arc of the story was Andy Lau's portrayal of the obsessed cop forced to make ambiguous moral decisions in his search for justice. Unless you are the kind of person who really enjoys violence, guns, explosions and how the HK police force doesn't employ snipers to take down criminals in the open, then this film probably quite for you.