4 Star

Plenty of Bang for Your Bucks.

From writer director Herman Yau (Shock Wave, Turning Point, Turning Point 2) comes this year’s blockbuster thriller as he teams up once again with writer Erica Li ( Ip Man: The Final Fight) to bring us a stand-alone sequel in name only, set in Hong Kong and using the Police Explosive Ordinance Bureau as the backdrop for this twisty-turny tale of terrorism. High Energy Thriller from Cine Asia.

 

This well crafted film starts how it doesn’t want to end, with a spectacular explosion on an epic scale. Now we have to prevent this from coming true.

Anger can destroy everything.

Luckily when all hope was lost, one man overcame his anger, and stopped this tragedy from happening.

The man that saves the day, day in day out is Poon Shing Fung (Andy Lau, Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers, Battle of the Warriors, Chasing the Dragon) as a member of the EOD Bureau (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), alongside him is his brother in armour Tung Cheuk-man (Ching Wan Lau, (as Sean Lau), Poker King, Driving Miss Wealthy). It is one of these days we start with Poon in the aftermath of a jewellery robbery where a poor assistant has her hands full of an armed hand grenade. Poon calms the woman as he starts to remove his protective armour, and proceeds to put it around the woman, before taking the grenade into his own hands and heads outside to dispose of the grenade safely.

You don’t save lives by risking your own.

Another day another shout, this time it is somebody threw a corrosive liquid out of a seventh floor window, which rings alarm bells among the EODB. When they get to the seventh floor they find that a former boyfriend has take umbrage with his ex and her new beau. But not every one would tie them up in chains and balance them on a pressure plate attached to a pile of pipe bombs, tense stuff. Poon and Tung work in unison to free the lovers, with precision they work to free the couple, with perfect timing they disarm the bombs and free the pair and as Tung takes them to safety, Poon spots a cat in a microwave.

Rule 1: It is never just the cat.

The microwave is booby-trapped and Boom! the room explodes all around Poon, it blows a hole in the floor and down Poon goes, his team rush in and see Poon unconscious and that the lower part of his left leg is gone.

Poon faces a long recovery road, learning to walk with his new prosthetic leg and get back to peak fitness so that he can regain his place back in his beloved EODB. Even though his fitness is far above the forces standards, he is only offered a desk job in the Education and Manpower Bureau. He is not a happy Chappy.

Pay by Anger.

This is when we hear about the terrorist organization Vendetta that supplies angry people with suicide vests and other paraphernalia for terrorist acts, and they believe that Ma Sai Kwan (Kwan-Ho Tse, Guilty of Mind, Just Another Pandora’s Box) is in charge, a rich man with an axe to grind. Poon disappears and is not seen for a few years, which is the time that attacks are ramped up, until he is spotted at a hotel posing as a waiter. The waiter pushes a lectern out to the pool where a presentation is about to take place. Poon is spotted by security and a spectacular chase ensues and shows that in the time he has been out of the public eye he has learnt to use his new leg. The lectern is booby-trapped and when a big switch is thrown it explodes killing lots of people and Poon jumps from a balcony into the swimming pool before it collapses, spilling him onto the street below and this leaves him unconscious and suffering from amnesia. Was Poon a willing bomber or was he just caught up in a weird situation? It is down to his old team to find out.

Shock Wave: Hong Kong Destruction is a well written explosive action film that fleshes out its characters and uses great special effects for the spectacular explosions. Well worth the two hours of viewing.

Shock Wave: Hong Kong Destruction is available on Blu-ray