Starring Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tso. Raging Fire is the final film of legendary director Benny Chan who tragically passed during post-production. A strait-laced cop past comes back to haunt him when his former protégé and his unit is released from prison only to become armed robbers leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
Donnie Yen returns once again to a role he was born to play, a police inspector (Bong). This time, not a hot-headed cop who keeps getting in trouble but a by the book cop who refuses to look the other way no matter what higher-ups ask him to.
Bong and long-time friend/mentor and his superior Sing are on the verge of capturing some long-time criminals and their entire gangs. They plan to intercept a drugs deal. The worsts happens, a masked gang ambushes the deal, killing everyone including 8 policemen and Sing.
Even more shocking Bong discovers the leader of the gang in his old protégé and friend Ngo with his former team of cops.
Ngo was a good police inspector who had a lot of potential but when a political figure is kidnapped and held to ransom, Ngo is told to do what it takes by any means to get his location for a rescue. Ngo and his team begin illegally interrogating and torturing a local thug to get the location all while being on the phone with his superior who’s telling him to push ahead and will have his back if things go bad. They get to the location and rescue him but the worst happens and the thug is beaten to death. Bong witnesses this at the last minute and is too late to stop it.
Hurled before a court, Ngo and his team are left hung out to dry by the people that ordered him to do it including the political figure they rescued. By the book, Bong very reluctantly says yes when asked if he saw the suspects beat the thug. Ngo and his men are sent down for 4 years. Being cops in prison with the people they put in there, they didn’t have an easy time of it. Most came out with physical and psychological scars, Ngo included.
Their careers in ruins and itching for revenge, Ngo and his team now commit armed robbery and kill whoever gets in their way. The ageless Donnie Yen does what he does best, after Sing is killed, he does whatever it takes to track down and bring his killers to justice, sometimes going on a one-man rampage before his team arrive to back him up.
All due credit to Donnie Yen as he’s as great as ever but it’s Nicholas Tso who steals the show. Looking as cool as ice, badass and remorseless with long black locks and dressed in black, He cuts a tragic figure and even though he comes across as truly evil in some aspects you can’t help but feel sorry for him and the hand life has dealt him. It makes you wonder would we all be so different weren’t we dealt the same hand?
In terms of fights, there’s not an abundance of fight scenes. It more focuses on police work and shootouts. Of course, there’s the inevitable one on one end showdown between Bong and Ngo. But what we do see is much more gritty, realistic and desperate than the polished martial arts we are used to with Donnie Yen movies. And of course, it has an epic and suitable location of a run-down church which kind of plays into the fallen angel figure that Ngo portrays.
In conclusion, Raging Fire almost feels like a through back to classic Donnie Yen cop movies but brought right up to date much like the later Jackie Chans New Police Stories. Gone is the almost comical but always epics martial arts fights of people getting hit hundred of times and coming back for more. In their place, grittiness, realism and desperation of people struggling to do their jobs while staying alive. Raging Fire is defiantly up there with any big-budget Hollywood cop action thriller.
Raging was released in cinemas on November 12th 2021. Check out the trailer below. Also, stay tuned for the credits for a rather touching tribute to the late Benny Chan.
Rating 4/5 belts
