Fire of Conscience [DVD] [2010] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

A fun HK cop thriller with decent acting and a few brief but well staged action scenes. In fact, my biggest complaint about the movie is that the shootouts, as spectacularly filmed as they are, don't last long enough. Nevertheless, it is still a cut about most Hollywood cop movies that are coming out nowadays. Just go in without expecting anything mind blowing and you'll have a good time.

The Hong Kong directors do seem to have a penchant for making good crime thrillers. This is no exception.

Here's the scoop. Captain Manfred has lost his wife and unborn child to a knife-wielding pick pocket. He cannot even go back to his home and lives out of a van. A cop killed in a subway, and a dead prostitute, might have something in common. While performing the investigation, another high-up detective, Lee, enters the fray. They do some of the work together but something smells fishy and therein lies the rub.

Like many of its ilk this is no straightforward narrative. It's multi-layered with a few back roads thrown in to keep the viewer on his/her toes. It is absolutely one of the most violent films I've ever seen. There is gun play aplenty and a lot of explosions thrown in to boot. The resulting gore quotient might put the average viewer ill at ease. The action comes at regular intervals and it's really intense. Some of the editing, however, was so quick, I had a difficult time keeping track of what was going on. There were some rather astounding techniques used that really helped raise this above the crowd. The directing, acting, music, were all near the top of the trade. One of Manfred's side-kicks, May (played by Michelle Ye) has put her at the top of my radar for gals to watch. I am quickly falling in love.

One of my only complaints, save for the aforementioned editing, is that few of the characters were simply good or bad. They contained a bit of both. Usually I like that in writing. Here, somehow though, it seemed an afterthought to the point of distraction. That being said, this is still one of the best crime thrillers I've seen.

For most avid Hong-Kong crime thriller fans, the name of Dante Lam is now a familiar one. The director, who recently made two critically acclaimed films "The Beast Stalker" (2008) and "The Stool Pigeon" (2010), also directed another crime drama between them. The film's name is "Fire of Conscience," a film you are looking at.

Leon Lai is Captain Manfred, a police detective investigating a murder case of a prostitute with his trusted partners Cheung-on (Kai Chi Liu) and May (Michelle Ye). Manfred's wife was killed on a tram two months ago, and since the tragic day he has been living in a minivan while he is off duty, trying to find the murderer.

Richie Ren is ambitious Inspector Kee. One of his men gets killed while chasing a gang of young thieves who stole his cell phone. To find the culprits and retrieve the stolen phone, Inspector Kee asks Captain Manfred for a small favor. Both police detectives, complete opposite in looks (but both born in dragon year), are involved in the same crime, though they are still unaware of that.

In spite of the stylish cinematography (with the impressive opening black-and-white freeze frame shots) and strong acting from the leads Leon Lai and Richie Ren, "Fire of Conscience" fails to reach the heights of "The Beast Stalker" and "The Stool Pigeon." It takes too much time for the convoluted story to be interesting, and too many subplots and characters are introduced. As a result some actors are sadly wasted, like Vivian Hsu as Kee's girlfriend.

The film offers one intense gun action sequence in the mid-section, which is worth seeing. The climactic fight scene in a burning building is not bad, but Dante Lam's attempt to include a pregnant woman in the set-piece seems overdone, even though it is thematically related to one of the main characters' past.

Though it is not the director's best, "Fire of Conscience" is a decent modern Hong-Kong noir film.