Hong Kong Film Corner | Through the Shattered Lens

Chow Yun-Fat turns 70 years old on May 18, 2025. I’m going to celebrate his career by revisiting some of his best movies this month.

PRISON ON FIRE begins with a young man named Lo Ka Yiu (Tony Leung Ka-fai) accidentally killing a thug who physically assaults his dad. He soon finds himself convicted of manslaughter and is sentenced to three years in a Hong Kong prison. Lo is not cut out for life in prison, and it doesn’t take long for him to get on the wrong side of the gang leaders. They immediately sniff out his weakness and go about terrorizing him and blaming him for everything that comes up. This extends to the head prison guard Scarface (Roy Cheung), a completely ruthless bastard who does his part to make life miserable for the newbie. Luckily for Lo, he meets Ching (Chow Yun-Fat), a seemingly happy go lucky fellow prisoner who takes pity on the young man and decides to show him the ropes. Ching is one of those guys who keeps things loose and seems to be able to get along with everybody. The two men form a good friendship, but that doesn’t stop gang leader Micky and Scarface from continuing to pick on Lo. When Ching and Lo have had enough and stand up for themselves, all hell breaks loose!

PRISON ON FIRE is an excellent example of a high quality Hong Kong film of the time. The characterizations and tone are uneven and over the top at times, but director Ringo Lam knows how to rein everything in just enough to convey the power in the story without making us laugh at it all. Tony Leung Ka-fai (known as big Tony in 80’s & 90’s Hong Kong film circles to distinguish him from the great Tony Leung Chiu-wai), portrays his character as weak and afraid until he’s been pushed so far by the gang leaders that he basically loses control and begins attacking everyone with a huge shard of glass. I don’t love the performance, but he does effectively show what happens to a nice, but weak guy in this situation. Chow Yun-Fat is not the superhuman, cool badass of films like THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED in this film. Rather, Chow plays his character as funny, easy-going, and not especially tough, until the prison guard Scarface pushes him so far that he loses control and deforms the man for life in a scene that’s extremely exciting and ends with a gruesome exclamation point. It’s an endlessly likable performance. Scarface is played by the fine Hong Kong actor Roy Cheung. His portrayal of the character makes Clancy Brown’s Captain Hadley in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION almost seem like a nice guy in comparison. You can’t help but be emotionally invested when a possessed Chow takes him on at the end. The other standout performances are from Ka-Hui Ho and Tommy Kwong as the gang leaders in the jail. Ho’s Micky is an absolutely garbage human being, while Kwong’s Bill is tough, but ultimately good to our heroes.

For historical reference, PRISON ON FIRE was released in 1987, at the height of Chow Yun-Fat’s popularity and at a time when he was working non-stop. It was one of eleven movies he made in 1987, with CITY ON FIRE, AN AUTUMN’S TALE, and A BETTER TOMORROW II being other standouts. Just think about that, 11 different movies in one year alone. It’s quite the tribute to his talent that he was able to create unique and memorable characters that have stood the test of time. As a matter of fact he would win a Hong Kong Film Award in 1987 for his performance in the prior year’s A BETTER TOMORROW, and he would win one again the next year for Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE. He is truly one of the great international stars of the last 40 years. He doesn’t work very often these days, but he’s still making movies and is generally considered one of the nicest, most humble humans on earth. He’s famous for the way he treats his fans, usually grabbing their phones and taking selfies with them with a big smile on his face! This is going to be a fun month as I rewatch many of the movies that made him famous.

Here’s an extremely long Trailer for PRISON ON FIRE without subtitles. It focuses on the action elements of the film so it’s pretty easy to follow.

The first time I ever remember seeing Hong Kong actor “Sean” Lau Ching-Wan on the screen was in the Jet Li film, BLACK MASK. I was watching the film because of Jet Li, who had recently hit it big in America as a bad guy in LETHAL WEAPON 4, but I remember thinking that Lau’s cop character was pretty darn cool too. I didn’t think of him again for awhile, but then I bought a book about Hong Kong movies called “Hollywood East: Hong Kong Movies and the People who Make Them,” from author Stefan Hammond. This book was Hammond’s follow up to “Sex and Zen and a Bullet in the Head,” one of the books that truly educated me on the cinema of Hong Kong. “Hollywood East” spent a whole bunch of pages discussing Lau Ching-Wan and his movies. I connected the dots between this very interesting actor I was reading about and that cool cop in BLACK MASK. So I did what I do. I bought one of his movies, and then another, and then another. Soon I was obsessed with watching all of his movies. One of those first movies I remember reading about in “Hollywood East” was THE BIG BULLET.

In THE BIG BULLET, Lau Ching-Wan is the badass cop-with-an-attitude, Sergeant Bill Chu, who doesn’t take crap off of anyone, including his superiors on the force. After belting one of his so-called superiors following a botched raid, Chu finds himself transferred to the Hong Kong police force’s “Emergency Unit,” a clear demotion for a man of his experience and arrest record. Here, the loner must work as part of a team to answer the various calls that come their way on a daily basis. This isn’t always easy, as one of the fellow cops on the unit is the extremely by-the-book Inspector Jeff Chiu (Jordan Chan). They clash immediately. Other members include the spunky Apple (Theresa Lee), the nerdy gun nut (Cheung Tat-Ming), and the old guy (Spencer Lam). This somewhat ragtag group finds themselves in the uneviable position of trying to stop an extremely dangerous group of thieves, led by The Professor (Yu Ronguang) and Bird (Anthony Wong). We’ve seen their willingness to kill at the drop of the hat, and the Emergency Unit doesn’t seem to be a proper match for these criminals. Or are they??

If you’re looking for a strong action film, and you’ve never seen it before, I present THE BIG BULLET. Director Benny Chan was emerging as a top notch Hong Kong film director, and THE BIG BULLET seemed to announce that he was throwing his hat into the ring as an action specialist when some of Hong Kong’s best action directors were taking their talents out west. There’s a sequence about 25 minutes into the film where our heroes find themselves in a shootout with the main villains that will leave your heart racing in the same manner as some of John Woo’s or Ringo Lam’s best work. And the actors are the very best that Hong Kong has to offer. Lau Ching-Wan, while not a dashing star in the mold of Chow Yun-Fat, easily carries the film on his shoulders with his natural charisma and tremendous screen presence. Even now, almost 30 years later, Lau Ching-Wan continues to dominate the Hong Kong film industry from an acting standpoint. He is nominated in 2025 for the Hong Film Award for Best Actor for his role in the film PAPA (2024). The excellent Francis Ng has a small, but pivotal role as Chu’s friend and colleague on the police force who helps him save his job at the beginning of the film. I also like Jordan Chan as the by-the-books member of the team who comes to realize that there are times when you may have to bend the rules to stop dangerous criminals. In a role that starts out extremely unlikable, he wins us over as the film progresses. As far as the criminals go, it would be hard to get much better actors for the parts than Yu Rongguang (IRON MONKEY) and Anthony Wong (BEAST COPS, THE MISSION). These excellent actors are cool and evil and we definitely want to see them get their comeuppance before the credits roll.

Overall, THE BIG BULLET may lose a little bit of steam in its second half, but it’s still a great example of how strong Hong Kong action films were in the late 90’s. It’s also an example of the excellent talent in Hong Kong films even as Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, and John Woo had already moved on to Hollywood. THE BIG BULLET has a special place in my heart since it was one of those formative Lau Ching-Wan films in my life. But nostalgia aside, it’s still a damn good action film, and I recommend it without any reservations!