A Hong Kong martial arts kicktacular featuring the stellar team of actor/mayhem choreographer Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip!

This hasn't been the best of TIFF times for me. You could say it was the worst of times, or at least tough times at TIFF.

I have found myself posing the following question to me: When, o when, will I leave a theatre thinking, "yessss!!"?

I have done so. Flash Point did the trick.

I had high expectations, mainly because of 2005's SPL, which also screened at TIFF. Donnie Yen starred and handled the action choreography in that earlier film, which Yip directed.

Now, about the current film. Being a genre picture, I should say there is a certain ... predictability as to how things unfold. :)

Ju (Yen) is again a tough, honest but insubordinate cop up against some ruthless gangsters. In this case, they are three Vietnamese brothers: Archer, Tony and Tiger. Yen's partner Wilson has infiltrated the gang.

While they catch Archer, the remaining brothers systematically eliminate all witnesses against him until only Wilson is left.

Archer walks out of court a free man, but for our purposes, this is good because it gives street justice a chance to prevail.

There are lots of well-considered fight and chase sequences, but the final battle between Yen and and Tiger (Yu Xing) is riveting. Not to give too much away, but when they are fighting on the rooftop of some country home, Ju has his legs wrapped around Tiger, who pulls off a superhuman feat of strength. He lifts Ju and starts banging him against some balcony railings. The two men fall from the roof. The camera seemingly falls right behind them as they crash about two floors to the ground.

Spontaneous applause erupted in the audience. In the martial arts film context, this is equivalent to hitting a high C in opera.

During the q-and-a afterwards, I asked Yip about something Wing Ju said two years earlier after the SPL screening about the alley-way fight between himself and Yen.  He said Yip had told them: "'Don't even rehearse too much. Just fight'."

I asked, tongue-in-cheek, if he gave Yen and Yu Xing the same instruction. Yip took the question seriously. He said this film was much more choreographed, and that the final fight scene took a month to film.

It lasts for less than 10 minutes on screen, by my guesstimate.

As much as I liked SPL, I have to say that technically, Flash Point is a better film. The directing and editing are both a step up for Yip.

Action-wise, Yip said that Yen has been heavily influenced by watching mixed martial arts fighting. He found that many kung fu movies have become too stylized and almost robotic, and he wanted to move away from that to something more visceral and street-level.

Hey, it worked for me!

I never saw SPL screen in a T.O. theatre after TIFF, but it did come out on DVD as Kill Zone in late October 2006. While you're waiting for Flash Point, check out the earlier film.