“I admire you but I will not likely go quick on you.”
Singer and actor Richie Ren is no stranger when it will come to Hong Kong cinema, as he is finest regarded for his stand out performance in Johnnie To’s Breaking News (2004) and later on in Trivisa (2015). In Intense Cop, a Mainland online movie streaming on Youku online video platform is his initially enterprise into the martial arts style.
Set in region M, somewhere in Southeast Asia, there life Zhang Tu, a center aged one parent with a younger son, Xiao Jie, who is also a hard doing work detective. He always asks his boss for a marketing so he can be a much better function design for his son who is anything to him. A person working day, his son will come back again from faculty in pain and included with bruises, clearly a target of bullying at college. After obtaining out that a bunch of youthful grownups are responsible, he sets out to instruct them a lesson by beating them up. The humiliated bullies are in fact human organ traffickers performing for Dala, whose father runs the operation. As a result, they return and kidnap Jie which effects in the determined detective exploring all more than the state looking for his lost son.
Story intelligent there is rarely anything at all that stands out the motion picture is utterly formulaic and cliche ridden. But what is extraordinary is how the filmmakers are ready to renovate Ren into a convincing martial artist. It seems to be like they genuinely place him by way of some exceptionally demanding bodily combat education. For somebody who hardly has any coaching in martial arts and pushing in the direction of sixty, his fully commited and amazing performances have earned significant praise. Even so, he is less convincing in the course of the sections in which is required to show feelings and cry at instances.
Acquiring the renowned stunt and struggle coordinator Kenji Tanigaki as the action director confident helps to bring the motion sequences to yet another level. There are plenty of MMA type hand-to-hand combats on screen below, identical to the kinds in Donnie Yen’s Flash Stage (2007), Significant Brother (2018) and Raging Fire (2021). He also contains a variety of goods like beer bottles, sledgehammer, pipes, baseball bat and even the spiky durian fruits which are put to excellent use as handy weapons apart from the normal knives and cleavers.
General, the fights are fluid, artistic and crisply executed and grounded and the absence of freeze frames and jerky tactics are also a in addition. Whilst the opening fight and the prolonged nightclub brawl are reasonably amazing, the most memorable action established piece is unquestionably the 1 with Ren and Dang Shan Pang who wields a pair of curved knives, near the end. It is a rhythmic encounter, brutal and frantic and masterfully shot to exhibit that every blow counts.
It is not a surprise to see Chan Tai Lee sooner or later brunches out to direct an motion motion picture soon after becoming the screenwriter for films like the Ip Male movie collection, Wu Xia (2011), Particular ID (2013), Raging Hearth (2021) and Sakra (2023). Sad to say the ensuing Intense Cop, a film that kicks off on very a superior observe but weights down by the melodramatic human trafficking concept that usually takes about, is not on the identical amount. However, it nevertheless operates as an all out action movie generally thanks to the wonderful action choreography of Tanigaki.
On the additionally side, the film’s small working time of eighty 7 minutes is a blessing. Surprisingly, the vivid, glossy and vibrant locale photographs which search much more at residence in a travel brochure are a mismatch for the substantially darker concept. Acting wise, Ren is remarkably amazing as the unstoppable detective Zhang Tu with tremendous electrical power to match. Chen Yao, who performs Su Qin Mao, the nightclub lady who ends up serving to him with his cross place search for his son is similarly likable and resourceful. Elsewhere and practically unrecognizable, Waise Lee turns up as Zhang’s boss Meng Bacha. Yu Kang has a little function as the ringleader of the human traffickers but his conclude fight with Zhang is disappointing.
All round, Fierce Cop is worth a view because of to its splendidly intended and edited struggle sequences. The only allow down is the thin plot and the melodrama that tries a bit far too difficult seeking to deal with the evil doings of the organ harvesters.