The White Storm (2013)

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It brings you back to the good old days of HK movies. Reminds me of Chow Yun Fatt (as Mark-Kor) in A Better Tomorrow, especially the shootout scenes in Galaxy Macau. A twist in the middle of the story line and really did not thought it will unfold in such a unexpected way. Girl was hot. I personally think Nick Cheung was great in this movie.Although it may not be like one of those Hollywood-styled movie, however, it definitely reserves a special place in the heart of HK movie followers. Nostalgic. It just hits you there!!!

Maybe its me but my action movie expectations have moved on. I was hoping for Mexican cartel executions 'Asian style' when they were in Thailand. Something like the scenes shown in Breaking Bad but there was nothing dramatic and of shock value that tells me you don't mess with these people except in dialogue.Acting was top notch from all three main characters given the poor dialogue - these are lowlifes and I'd expected a lot more swearing but the lack of one 'du lay lo mo' just made the movie lame.My final complaint is in the the final act. It borders on ridiculous watching a coward cop grow a set of balls for the final confrontation and his two fellow handicapped cops take on a full paramilitary unit with assault rifles with just handguns.

At the point when Lau yield at his superior (with a strong baritone voice sourcing from the lower belly regions) 'It's a life you're dealing with !!!' it was pretty exhilarating. I thought this might be different.Then the 3 main actors got together for a lunch and started singing.. I can see the sentimental setup already. Further more with another signing episode when deciding to go to Thailand or not. By the way, Nick Cheung's goofy hair style and demeanour sort of too childish and maybe gave away the 2nd half? Yet, at the climax of the Thailand scenes, the 'other' philosophical writer came back!!!! The "choose 1 of 2"... difficult choice Lau has to make breath life back into the narrative again. I would have like a bit more time there to show the difficulty (maybe like Good/Bad/Ugly with the 3 minute song extreme close up ending).Yet over yet, when the 8 face Buddha comes to HK and messiness resumes. Then until the rooftop scene where "choose 1 of 2" philosophical question came full circle.. I thought this could be revenge well played but really how would they follow it up? then came a Better Tomorrow ending that is maybe 1/2 the effort of all the footage before it. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

The White Storm, the latest film from Hong Kong director Benny Chan is a undercover drug story, but it's not interested in crime genre elements or in exploring the social issue of drug production in Thailand, but the on screen chemistry between its three stars: Sean Lau, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung. The story reminded me most of John Woo's Bullet in the Head in that it was about the disintegration of a brotherhood. The dramatic conflict between the three actors are the price of admission. It has a very interesting A story that could have made a great film, but The White Storm spends a lot of the 134-minute running time telling instead of showing its story. And also like Bullet in the Head, it executes it in the hammiest way possible under the guise of Hong Kong 80′s action nostalgia.For example, in the story Koo, Lau and Cheung are lifelong friends. The film chooses to exposit this by having the trio reminisce about singing the theme song "Pledge to Join the War" by Adam Cheng from the classic TV show "Luk Siu Feng", a classic song about brotherhood. And later on in the movie, Benny Chan plays the goddamn song. This is just about the oldest, hokiest joke in the book; they may as well have tied red headbands around their heads. People in my theater, including myself, laughed, not because it's a funny clever reference but more in surrender of how shamelessly cheesy the writers were willing to go to highlight their bromance. Yes, they are very good friends, we get it!Sean Lau is the subtle glue that holds all this cheese together. Something I observed about Lau was that he had all the best lines and was the only one out of the three protagonists who was not given a backstory. The lines of dialogue aren't good in a cool quotable way, but it was exactly what the character would say in a given moment, no more no less. I suspect Lau rewrote a lot of his own lines. He gives a pronounced performance that's as low volume and non-showy as this production will allow, but yet he comes out as the most engaging character. It's really a testament to how underrated an actor Lau is.Louis Koo and Nick Cheung, as good as they are and as much effort as they put in, overact compared to Lau. They are fine actors but are bogged down delivering a lot of expositional monologues stating how they feel. The romantic subplots Koo and Cheung are given almost dangerously dominate the A story. It's not their fault though, Benny Chan directs with a heavy hand. It's as if Chan and the writers constantly worry that the audience won't be able to follow what's going on, so they overcompensate.Speaking of overcompensation, Lo Hoi-Peng shows up with crazy acting hair to chew up scenery, and boy, does he ever chew! It's entertaining watching an old man act bananas but the hair does most of the acting. It's hammy as hell. But despite of all the ham and cheese, Louis Koo, Sean Lau and Nick Cheung make very good company and are the price of admission. And at its core The White Storm is a good story about three friends, I just wished it wasn't screamed at me.