“The Big Heat” Chinese DVD Cover
Director: Andrew Kam
Co-director: Johnnie To
Co-director: Tsui Hark
Cast: Waise Lee, Paul Chu Kong, Philip Kwok, Joey Wong, Stuart Ong, Michael Chow, Ken Boyle, Kirk Wong, Gordon Chan, Roy Cheung, Gwaan Gaam Ming, Kong Long, Peter Lai, Robin Shou, Tsui Hark
Running Time: 92 min.
By Numskull
The first half of The Big Heat is a big snore, and even when the story picks up, you’ll still be yawning and picking those optic boogers out of the corners of your eyes. Waise Lee has the lead role (big mistake) in a cop movie which is remarkable only because of its occasional moments of in-your-face gore. There aren’t many of them, but they do hit fairly hard (especially the body getting bounced from car to car).
Gay rights groups would just love the sub-plot about the tycoon taking great lengths to recover evidence of his homosexual activities. Apparently, fudge-packing is generally considered a more perverse activity in Hong Kong than it is in the US, and that lends a somewhat disturbing quality to seemingly innocuous lines like “You take one end, and I’ll take the other.”
Blood and guts aside, the film is painfully mediocre at best. Waise Lee and his fellow cops are totally uninvolving as protagonists, none of the villains really gets under your skin, the script plods, and nothing grabs you. Uninspired, unimpressive, unremarkable. I wish there was more to say about this film, but it’s so damn bland that I can hardly think of anything relevant to say.
A caveat for gore hounds, though: don’t make a big deal out of seeing this movie, expecting some blood-drenched masterpiece of carnage. The gory bits are few and far between.
You know that Far Side cartoon where there’s a bunch of penguins standing around, and they all look alike, and one of them is singing “Oh, I gotta be me, I just gotta be me”? That’s what this movie reminds me of. In a sea of Hong Kong cop thrillers with interchangeable story elements and characters, this one is standing up, making a pitiful attempt to be noticed, waving its arms around and grunting like a frustrated child trying to get the teacher to call on it because it knows the answer to the question that’s baffling the bigger kids. Well, you know what happens to movies like this? That’s right, they get beaten up and robbed of their lunch money during recess by movies with more muscle….and somehow, I doubt The Big Heat would have the balls to show up at school the next day with a submachine gun. Don’t let the extra gore fool you into thinking this movie is special. It does not deserve your support.
Numskull’s Rating: 4/10
