The White Storm (2013) - Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung

[DiP]

A new action thriller directed by Benny Chan and featuring a cast consisting of Lau Ching Wan, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Lo Hoi Pang and Yuan Quan. Nicky Li will be responsible for the action scenes.

http://twitchfilm.com/2013/03/could-benny-chans-metamorphosis-spell-change-for-universe.html

Edited October 21, 2022 by DiP

[DiP]

First trailer is out.

http://twitchfilm.com/2013/05/exciting-first-trailer-for-benny-chans-the-white-storm.html

[mark187]

looks incredible! so when is the release date? I'd heard Chinese NY 2014, but hopefully it'll be sooner than that

[mark187]

so from the sounds of the reviews, this'll be the HK movie event of the year!

[DiP]

Ben Lam is going to have a major role in the film, according to HKMDB and IMDB. His last credited work to date is Flash Point. Glad to see this guy back onscreen!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2957774/reference

[One Armed Boxer]

Twitch gave it a pretty positive write up as well, sounds like a throwback to HK heroic bloodshed days -

http://twitchfilm.com/2013/10/hk-asian-2013-review-the-white-storm.html

[DiP]

Sounds like his other movies actually. Bombastic action scenes, weak acting performances. Benny's lousy at directing drama but makes that up with well-staged action set-pieces. I always liken him to Michael Bay, both hit-and-miss filmmakers but incredibly good at giving entertainment to audiences.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Sounds great, have been looking forward to this. Crazy action and melodrama... I like it. And it's actually set on the HK streets and in Thailand.... so no mainland polesmoking on this one, I presume... I like it even more.

And please.... it's insulting to Benny to even mention Bay in the same breath.

[DiP]

To be fair, Chan makes better movies than Bay. But in the end I still think both are lousy directors but great entertainers, hence my comparison.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

I don't really get that.... how can you be a lousy director, if you're a great entertainer that entertains the audience? I would say you have to be at least a mediocre or decent director to entertain. lousy directors only entertain those that don't know any better and have no taste. And I know you do:smile:

[DiP]

I would say you have to be at least a mediocre or decent director to entertain.

Bingo! I should've used another term to describe their averageness in film-making although they have come out with few good ones. Mediocre is what they are but does entertain due to their greatest asset: well-made action set-pieces.

[mark187]

HK DVD/BD are out on Jan. 29th! can't wait, looks to be one of the year's best!

[Sheng]

Saw it a couple of weeks ago and must say it’s a well paced, thoroughly engaging action romp and certainly waaay superior to the ludicrously OTT CGI-frenzyness of the other “Storm” movie, namely FIRESTORM, which opened the week after this. Nicki Li’s action choreo is damn tight, the opening Mongkok drug bust and especially the crazy shooting sprees they filmed in Thailand are bonafide showstoppers. Kinda reminds you of the fact that gun battles staged by a top-notch HK AC just can’t be equaled anywhere in the world! The final showdown in a Macao casino, a throwback to the excesses of late 80’s heroic bloodshed cinema, was of the very predictable kind though and something of a letdown.

[mark187]

good to hear man! that helicopter attack in the poppy field shown in the trailer looked bananas as well!! really can't wait to see it, had to order it express I'm so impatient

[D1 Ma]

That's encouraging!

I read some reviews and although they praised the performances, called the movie overall a disappointment. On the other hand, read some glowing reviews about Firestorm. Go figure... White storm was on top of my must-see list, can't wait for the DVD to come out!

[mark187]

Hi Sheng or anyone else who's seen it, I just read a comment complaining about CGI blood. without spoiling it, are there any squibs used too?

[Sheng]

Derek Elley’s WHITE STORM review on ‘Film Business Asia’ is just up - http://www.filmbiz.asia/reviews/the-white-storm - and it does indulge in the probably inevitable comparism with, you guessed it, the other “Storm” movie: Alan Yuen’s FIRESTORM.

“As a contender for Hong Kong's best action movie of 2013, it's a notch down on Firestorm 風暴 (directed, ironically by Chan's regular scriptwriter Alan YUEN 袁錦麟), which has way better dialogue, some real action showstoppers and a deeper emotional resonance. Simply said, Firestorm pushes the genre envelope while White Storm is happy to stay inside it.”

Having sat through both films within 24 hours and actually re-watching FIRESTORM the day after because I wanted to see if the film’s relentless FX bombardement comes across better in its 2 D version (it doesn’t!), I must say I arrived at the exact opposite verdict. Despite a great performance by Lam Ka Tung – FIRESTORM’s saving grace! – the dramatic sequences of the film feel nondescript and somewhat hurried and seem to be constantly curtailed in order to push in a maximum of action. And with all its disaster movie pyrotechnics (big double-decker buses flying through the air, etc) the final 30 minute action “showstopper” looked so horrendously fake and (almost!) computer-game-ish that you’ll instinctively hold your breath and shake your head - and there was quite a bit of headshaking around me in the Mongkok theater where I saw it first!

Yes, the action was staged by HK’s best choreographer, the (nowadays) incomparable Chin Kar Lok, and some of it was definitely well-designed (like the hair-raising car chase with the subsequent showdown between Andy Lau and Hu Jun), but overall it was just a tad too gross to fully engage. And I strongly speculate that the idea to go for the total CGI overkill in the last reel was beyond the AC’s domain and more of a directorial or investor’s decision.

Still, as wacked-out and bananas as FIRESTORM is, it was the film everybody talked about at work in HK during Xmas time, like “did you see that film where they start a shoot-out on Peddler Street and then blow up half of Central…?”

THE WHITE STORM is plot-wise not more than a throwback to HK cinema’s well-established bloody brotherhood tropes, true, but overall it is better casted, has a lil’ more emotional resonance to it (it is also the longer film!), and the action simply looks more grounded, with gun battles that are far more involving and a hell more realistic than in FIRESTORM. To me the only truly jarring moment was a blue screen slo-mo sequence when Nick Cheung’s character is pushed into a river swarming with crocs that was just as unconvincingly integrated into the central action set-piece of the film as was, say, Kara Hui’s plunge into a raging stream after her incredible fight with Donnie Yen in WU XIA.

FIRESTORM was loaded with way too many of those hokey-looking CG sequences which numb the senses the longer you watch, til’ you’re finally beyond the point of caring.

[One Armed Boxer]

Review from Kozo over at lovehkfilm -

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/white_storm.html

[mark187]

Benny Chan (and the 3 leads) should be acknowledged for his efforts here, this was truly a magnificent film.

[kami]

I wouldn't call it magnificent but it was a more than a pleasant surprise to me, especially since Benny Chan's last two films sucked and the trailer for this one did not do much for me. THE WHITE STORM is a welcome throwback to classic HK-bloodshed-cinema complete with brotherhood, betrayal and loyalty. And even more welcome is the fact, that the violent conflicts in this movie are mostly "solved" by guns, not by chopping knifes like in so many other genre films in the last years. Another pro: It feels like a HK-movie. No Mandarin-jabber, no obnoxious Mainland-characters, no obvious Cantonese dubbing, it almost feels like old times.

Unfortunately in the middle with the burial scene, the crying, the fist-clenching and Nana Mouskouri's "Amazing Grace"-singing Chan overdid it again, a subtle display of emotions doesn't seem to be his thing. Nevertheless an entertaining and almost great movie.

[massa_yoda]

Unfortunately in the middle with the burial scene, the crying, the fist-clenching and Nana Mouskouri's "Amazing Grace"-singing Chan overdid it again

Ugh, really? This is why I have a hard time with Benny Chan films. He always overdoes the emotions. It's frustrating because his films could be so much better if he could just bring it down a notch. Instead, we get movies that are borderline embarrassing at times.

[DiP]

Ugh, really? This is why I have a hard time with Benny Chan films. He always overdoes the emotions. It's frustrating because his films could be so much better if he could just bring it down a notch. Instead, we get movies that are borderline embarrassing at times.

This^^

Apart from few movies, I haven't been impressed with his track record as a whole. This looks interesting though so I might check it out.

[Drunken Monk]

Is there any news on someone like Well Go USA picking this up for a North American release? It likes it's definitely in their wheelhouse.

I really, really want to see it but I'm happy to wait if it'll get a release over here.

[mark187]

I read a couple months ago it was supposed to get a studio level deal here, but they were gonna wait and announce it when it was confirmed

[xianzai]

I was thrilled to see a good take on the Heroic Bloodshed formula. All that was missing was the slow-mo. I think people saying the emotions were overdone should watch some John Woo HB movies.