2007 - Flash Point (Film) - KayLing88 Entertainment Review

Flash Point (aka City Without Mercy) is a 2007 Hong Kong martial arts action crime film directed by Wilson Yip, and also choreography and produced by Donnie Yen and starring Yen, Collin Chou, Louis Koo and Ben Lam. This was Ben Lam's final film appearance, who has retired from acting.

Yen portrays Ma Jun, a police sergeant who plants his friend and partner, Wilson, (Louis Koo) as a mole in a pursuit against a triad led by three Vietnamese brothers (Collin Chou, Ray Lui, and Xing Yu).
Flash Point was repeatedly hailed as a prequel to the 2005 film SPL: Sha Po Lang, which was Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen's first feature-film collaboration as director and star respectively.

Yen denied the SPL sequel reports, claiming that Flash Point was a completely original film. Principal photography began in Hong Kong from November 2006 to March 2007. For his conception of Flash Point's major fight sequences, Yen relied on the use of mixed martial arts, working alongside an international group of martial artists. His work as a choreographer won him "Best Action Choreography" awards at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2008 Golden Horse Film Awards.

Publication Information

Title : Flash Point (Film)
Chinese : 导火线
Directed by : Wilson Yip
Produced by : Nansun Shi, Donnie Yen
Written by : Szeto Kam-Yuen, Nicholl Tang
Starring : Donnie Yen, Louis Koo, Collin Chou, Lui Leung-Wai, Fan Bingbing
Music by : Chan Kwong-Wing
Cinematography : Cheung Man-Po
Editing by : Cheung Ka-Fai
Distributed by : Hong Kong - Mandarin Films Distribution Co. Ltd, China - Polybona Films, Singapore - Golden Village Pictures, United States - The Weinstein Company, Dragon Dynasty (DVD)
Release date(s) : Hong Kong : August 9, 2007
Running time : 88 minutes
Country : Hong Kong
Language : Cantonese
Budget : HK$10,000,000
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Flash Point was released in Hong Kong on 9 August 2007. It was a box office hit during its two month theatrical run in China, despite receiving mixed reviews. It had also premiered at the "Midnight Madness" program of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Flash Point was later given a limited theatrical release in North America on 14 March 2008, before being released on DVD by The Weinstein Company as part of Dragon Dynasty's collection of films.

Set in pre-1997, before the return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, the film opens with brothers Archer, Tony and Tiger discussing a drug deal with Sam, a rival gang leader. Ma Jun, a serious criminal investigations detective, along with a team of police officers, raids the nightclub for investigation, and winds up fighting against his partner, Wilson, who has been planted as a mole.

The three brothers are later attacked by Sam and his gang who are impatient over receiving the drugs from the brothers' native Vietnam. Archer and his brothers later threaten the elder leaders of their gang, when they attempt to intervene. Tiger is later assigned to kill Sam out in public, but the plan backfires when Wilson intervenes. While in hospital, Sam agrees to testify in court against the three brothers. On the night of their mother's birthday, the brothers plan to recover their drug money, but as the heist is being performed, Archer is arrested by Hong Kong police, while Tony and Tiger discover that Wilson is a mole.

While in court, Archer is forced to turn in all of his travel documents, in hope that he will not flee from Hong Kong before his hearing. Tony and Tiger brutally murder Sam along with several other witnesses and crime figures crucial to the police investigation. After their first plan to kill Wilson fails, Tony and Tiger decide to sneak into a hospital guarded by police. Ma discovers that Tiger, disguised as a janitor, is in the building and goes after him, they both end up being in the same elevator where Tiger attempts to kill Ma with a silenced pistol.

Here they engage in a grueling fight, a female police officer runs into the elevator and tries to help Ma but ends up getting shot in the heart by a stray bullet after hesitating to shoot Tiger. Tony, having kidnapped Wilson's girlfriend, Julie, threatens to kill her, if Wilson, now a sole witness, testifies in court. Ma chases Tiger when he tries to escape until he squares off against Tiger inside a restaurant, and brutally beats him to death in front of a crowd after Tiger severely injures a little girl by throwing her on the concrete.

During the court hearing, Wilson refuses to testify, and the case is dismissed for lack of evidence. Wilson later attempts to rescue Julie, but is captured by Tony and his gang. Once Archer walks free, Ma holds him captive, and calls his brother, Tony, for an exchange of hostages, leading to a confrontation in a Chinese village. Ma singlehandedly takes on the remaining gangsters, and engages in a grueling fight with Tony, whom he later arrests.

Flash Point marks the third re-teaming of director Wilson Yip and actor Donnie Yen after 2005's SPL: Sha Po Lang and 2006's Dragon Tiger Gate. Yen also served as fight choreographer, and produced the film alongside Nansun Shi, the celebrated wife of filmmaker Tsui Hark. The film was co-written by Szeto Kam-Yuen, who also co-wrote the script for SPL. Flash Point was executive produced by Raymond Wong, whose production company, Mandarin Films Ltd., served as a producer and distributor in Hong Kong.

While Dragon Tiger Gate was in post-production, Donnie Yen had announced that plans for a sequel to SPL: Sha Po Lang had already begun, with Mandarin Films set to finance the film. Production was planned to begin in May or June 2006. Yen and his management company later clarified that the team behind SPL would be working together again on a new film, but due to copyright issues, they would not be making a sequel to the 2005 film.

en lobbied for an American-based studio to co-produce the new film, tentatively known SPL 2, with Mandarin Films. With financing from abroad, Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen decided to raise the budget of the film to HK$50 million. Yip reportedly intended to have Aaron Kwok join the cast, but Kwok declined the role and Louis Koo had already agreed to join the cast. With Yen and Koo now cast as the lead actors, Yen and Yip had also pondered on their supporting cast for the film, even with an incomplete script. Zhang Jingchu and René Liu were considered as female leads.

Following the box office success of Dragon Tiger Gate, Yen had announced SPL 2's development, along with plans to make a sequel to Dragon Tiger Gate. SPL 2 was now given another tentative title, Battling the Police Force, and Yen also announced that the film would be written in a style similar to SPL. Yen had hoped the film would take part in the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and scheduled for a Labour Day release in 2007. The film was later retitled to Army Breaker, which means destroying thousands of opponents in war. The film was given a budget of US$8 million and production was set to begin in Macau on September 2006.

The film was now given the working title City Without Mercy, and director Wilson Yip was forced to drop plans of shooting in Macau, due to the lack of extras needed for filming. Yip needed 250 extras for one scene, and decided to return to Hong Kong with his crew for filming. Filming in Hong Kong began on 13 November 2008, and the cast for the film had been finalized. Filming finally ended in March, and the film was now given its former title, Flash Point. After filming, it was revealed that the film had gone over budget.

The fight scenes were choreographed by Yen, who combined mixed martial arts, an interdisciplinary form of fighting utilising elements of Brazilian jujutsu, judo, karate, boxing, kickboxing and wrestling, with his trademark wushu and taekwondo. This method of fighting is something Yen considers to be the greatest development of martial arts in his lifetime. Yen admits that his challenge during filming was to communicate the essence of these techniques in the dramatics of the film. To ensure that the action scenes stood out, Yen not only hired martial artists from around the globe but also invited Collin Chou to join the cast.

A promotional video highlighting Flash Point was shown at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the 2007 Hong Kong Film Awards. It also premiered at the "Midnight Madness" program of the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival in September that same year, at the Ryerson University Theater, with director Wilson Yip attending the premiere.

Flash Point opened in Hong Kong on 9 August 2007. In mainland China, Flash Point grossed a total of RMB15 million (US$1.98 million) in its first three days of release, according to its Hong Kong production and sales house Mandarin Films. While in Hong Kong, it grossed over HK$3.67 million (US$470,047) on its opening weekend. At the end of its box office run in Hong Kong, the film had grossed a total of over HK$9 million.

South African film distributor Distant Horizon acquired North American rights to the film. The film's release in all English-speaking territories is handled by The Weinstein Company which released the film on DVD as part of their Dragon Dynasty collection.

Cast