Full Alert (Ringo Lam, 1997)

Lau Ching-wan in Full Alert

Cast: Lau Ching-wan, Francis Ng, Amanda Lee, Jack Kao, Monica Chan, Chin Ka Lok, Yung Kam-cheong, Raymond Cho, Emily Kwan Po-wai. Screenplay: Ringo Lam, Lau Wing-kin, Poon Yuen-leung. Cinematography: Ardy Lam. Art direction: S.P. Choo, C.C. Wong. Film editing: Angie Lam, Marco Mak. Music: Peter Kam.

There are the usual thriller set pieces, car chases and gun battles, in Ringo Lam's Full Alert, but the film really hinges on the psychological twinning of cop and criminal. Everything in the film builds toward a final showdown between Pao (Lau Ching-wan), the cop in charge of the pursuit of Mak Kwan (Francis Ng), an explosives expert who escapes from prison after Pao arrests him. Both Pao and Mak are obsessive types, and an early confrontation establishes that both are haunted by guilt. Mak has a partner, Chung (Amanda Lee), whom he loves, and Pao has a wife (Monica Chan) and child. Lam deftly plays on these parallels throughout the film, and Lau and Ng give their characters full intensity. The result is a high-powered movie that feels more realistic than it actually is.  

Victim (Ringo Lam, 1999)

Lau Ching-wan in Victim

Cast: Lau Ching-wan, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Amy Kwok, Wayne Lai, Collin Chou, Hui Shiu-hung, Emily Kwan. Screenplay: Ho Man-lung, Ringo Lam, Joe Ma. Cinematography: Ross W. Clarkson. Art direction: Jason Mok. Film editing: Chan Chi-wai. Music: Raymond Wong. 

Ringo Lam's victim begins and ends like a horror movie, in a haunted hotel and a graveyard, but in between it's mostly an action film. This not entirely successful mashup of genres benefits from two high-powered performances, by Lau Ching-wan as Manson Ma, the titular victim, and Tony Leung Ka-fai as Pit Kwan, the detective in charge of the case. Ma, who is in financial trouble, is kidnapped at the film's beginning but rescued by Pit, who tracks him down to an old hotel where Ma is hanging upside down, apparently having been tortured. Under questioning, Ma is so eccentric in his responses that the police can make nothing of the case, so Pit takes over surveiling him when he's released. Car chases and gunfights ensue before we discover what Ma is really involved in, a counterfeiting scheme. The question of whether Ma has actually been possessed by the ghosts that are said to haunt the hotel lingers over the film, and Lam actually filmed two endings for Victim: In one, the question remains unanswered, while the other provides a manifestation of the spirits. Fortunately, Lam provides enough solid, even occasionally gruesome, action to satisfy any audience member who resists this rather pointless narrative gimmick.

Wild Search (Ringo Lam, 1989)

Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung in Wild Search

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Cherie Chung, Roy Cheung, Paul Chun, Chang Cheuk-yan, Ku Feng, Tommy Wong, Lau Kong, Frankie Ng, Elaine Jin, Wan Yeung-min. Screenplay: Nam Yin. Cinematography: Andrew Lau. Art direction: Luk Tze-Fung. Film editing: Chow Tung-Nei. Music: Lowell Lo. 

The chemistry of the romantic pairing of Chow Yun-Fat and Cherie Chung gives Ringo Lam's Wild Search enough heart to lift it above the routine Hong Kong action movie. Not that Lam is ever routine in his staging of action, but the likability of the actors and their characters make the film feel like it's more than just gunplay and cars and bodies in motion. Chow plays a cop named Lau but nicknamed Mew-Mew (we never find out why), who gets involved with Chung's character, Cher, when her sister, Elaine, is killed by gangsters muscling in on the gun-smuggling business Elaine's antique shopt is fronting for. A witness survives the gunfire, Elaine's small daughter known as Ka-ka (Chan Cheuk-yan).  Mew-Mew meets Cher while interviewing Ka-ka, and things escalate from there in both attraction and action. There's a vicious hit man called Bullet (Roy Cheung) to contend with, along with Ka-ka's grumpy old grandfather (Ku Feng) and a rival suitor for Cher's hand, her ex-husband (Lau Kong). Mew-Mew is more vulnerable than many of Chow's characters: He winds up in the hospital after one encounter, but he's very much on hand for the final blazing shootout. Much has been made of Wild Search's resemblance to Peter Weir's 1985 hit Witness, but the movie is more homage than plagiarism. 

School on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1988)

Fennie Yuen in School on Fire

Cast: Fennie Yuen, Sarah Lee, Damian Lau, Lam Ching-ying, Roy Cheung, Terrence Fok Shui-Wah, Joe Chu Kai-Sang, William Ho Ha-Kui, Chan Lap-Ban, Li Kwong-Tim. Screenplay: Nam Yin. Cinematography: Joe Chan. Art direction: Luk Tze-Fung. Film editing: Tony Kwok-Chung Chow. Music: Lowell Lo. 

Ringo Lam's School on Fire is the culmination of a series of "on fire" movies that started with City on Fire (1982) and continued with Prison on Fire (1987). (The 1991 sequel to the latter, Prison on Fire II, was made a response to the popularity of Chow Yun-fat in the first two films.) School on Fire centers on a schoolgirl, Chu Yuen Fong (Fennie Yuen), who is caught up in the infiltration into the schools of a triad headed by Smart (a handsomely sinister Roy Cheung). I think School on Fire is the best of the lot, in part because Lam's concentration on characters as well as action brings in focus his vision of corruption in Hong Kong. Still, nobody does frenzy better than Lam, and he tops himself with the climactic scene of School on Fire in which people and weapons and furniture are whipped into a chaotic conflict that makes you wonder how any of the actors involved in it survived.  

City on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987)

Chow Yun-fat in City on Fire

Cast: Chow Yun-fat, Sun Yueh, Danny Lee, Carrie Ng, Roy Cheung, Maria Cordero, Fong Yau, Victor Hon, Lau Kong, Elvis Tsui, Tommy Wong Kwong-leung, Cheng Mang-ha, Parkman Wong. Screenplay: Tommy Sham, Ringo Lam. Cinematography: Andrew Lau. Production design: Chi Fung Lok. Film editing: Wong Ming-lam. Music: Teddy Robin Kwan. 

In Ringo Lam's City on Fire, Chow Yun-fat plays Ko Chow, an undercover cop who wants to leave the force for a less perilous life. An easygoing, antic guy, Chow knows his days are probably numbered in the job and he wants to spend more time with his girlfriend, Hung (Carrie Ng), who keeps threatening to leave him. But his superior officer, Inspector Lau (Sun Yueh), chafing because he's being passed over on the force by a younger inspector (Roy Cheung), persuades Chow to go along with the gang of robbers he's infiltrated for one more heist. City on Fire is a solid cops-and-robbers movie with more characterization and less stylized action than many Hong Kong thrillers, and it helped establish Chow Yun-fat as a star in the genre.