Fire of Conscience - Printable Version +- Forums (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum) +-- Forum: Doom Arts (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/forumdisplay.php?fid=6) +--- Forum: Doom DVDs (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: Fire of Conscience (/showthread.php?tid=2350)

Fire of Conscience - Drunk Monk - 10-06-2011 In the tradition of John Woo, this is a gritty dirty cop drama, a real postcard of modern Hong Kong with some top-shelf ultravi. The opening scene was brilliant - totally hooked me in. It got a little overly melodramatic, which slowed things down in the middle. Then I got lost in the plot twists for a bit, until a lot of characters were killed off, narrowing it down. Then it made sense. The actors weren't overly impressive, but the action is great - nice gun play, swirling city scenes, HK neon colour schemes, visually very engaging. No sword fights but enough full auto, grenade blasts and brutal stabbings to make up for that. Two pregnant women in peril. Two! Not quite a DOOM flick - it's not quite that over-the-top - but it's still very enjoyable. This film is titled Fire Dragon in Chinese. It's a much better title as it relates to the characters and what happens. And there's a good cameo from my new friend, Chan Koon Tai. 8) Re: Fire of Conscience - Greg_phpbb3_import1 - 10-06-2011 Any relation the Chen Kuan tai? I watched the movie just to see him - Drunk Monk - 10-06-2011 About half way through, I had forgotten that he was a main reason I was watching this and started to get skeptical about my source saying he was in this. But he has a great cameo, towards the latter third or fourth of the film. This film is about nicotine, hard liquor, bullets and grenades. Re: Fire of Conscience - cranefly - 10-21-2011 One of the stronger openings I've seen, and it's all a frozen still shot that the camera zooms in and out of, tracks along and through the scene, revealing various details of the frozen action. If I understand the technique correctly, it requires scores of cameras. If so, this must have taken 50 to a 100 cameras, and even then they'd need to do post-production interframing to make the tracking/zooming/etc. absolutely smooth. Very cool. Then they introduced the characters and the problems arose. The main dude was incredibly wooden-faced and charisma-challenged in every way. Oddly, his motivations aren't made clear until the very end, in a flashback about his wife, and afterwards I kept thinking it would have helped me give an eff about him if I'd seen that early. Then again, to each director his own. Leaving the motivation until the end worked brilliantly in Once Upon a Time in the West, but that was a brilliantly done epic with compelling characters and scenes throughout. This one, it needed to grab our interest early and hold it, but I found myself zoning out, even during some of the major action scenes (which is not a good sign). The pregnant damsels in distress was pretty weird. I found myself grinning during those scenes. Not that they weren't dramatic. Just whackily over the top. Chen Kuan Tai's cameo was solid. I didn't realize that Meng Lo had a cameo too until I noted it on imdb (he's listed as "tram witness"). Oddly, it seemed the less screen time, the better the acting. Vivian Hsu was surprisingly effective in her few scenes. I cared about her more than anyone else in the film -- except for the dwarf with the huge hairy mole in the middle the forehead that kept telling dirty limericks. I watched this with headphones on. Afterwards, Lady Cranefly asked why I said, "Don't fuck with me," at one point during the movie. I told her it didn't have anything to do with the movie. I was zoning at the time, and just giving the world an ominous warning. agreed - Drunk Monk - 10-21-2011 That opening scene had me at 'hello' - freaking brilliant. If only the rest of the film could have lived up to that. Agreed on the pregnant scenes too. That was so very Hong Kong gangsta. The whole fire dragon ended was like being beaten over the head with a Chinese gong. But still, a lot of people got shot and blown up, so there was entertainment value in that.