Movie Review: Fire of Conscience/火龍

In Dante Lam’s Fire of Conscience/火龍  (2010) Leon Lai plays a cop whose pregnant wife has been murdered.

He uses his job to avoid the truth of his situation, and it seems to be eating him alive.

Richie Ren plays another police officer who has a secret or three he will do anything to keep.

Wang Baoqiang plays a young man who hs been working in Hong Kong in order to bring his pregnant wife  to Hong Kong.

Vivian Hsu plays Richie Ren’s girlfriend.

She’s not pregnant.

But it was certainly a risk at her old job.

What can I say? Some people say chicken tastes better raw.

Michelle Ye plays one of Leon Lai’s team members.

She takes care of him since he refuses to do it for himself.

Liu Kai Chi doesn’t have a wife either.

She ran off and left him with their daughter.

But at least she’s not dead. Or pregnant.

When I saw Fire of Conscience/火龍 in the cinema, I didn’t really care for it, apparently. 

What a difference a few years makes. 

Because now, I’m saying that Fire of Conscience/火龍 is an interesting film for a lot of reasons.

It has more than few moments of graphic violence, which I found to be narratively useful as opposed to exploitative.

They’re also cringe-worthy in the best kind of “Oh-God-I-hope-that-never-happens-to-me” way.

I really liked the cinematography. The colors seemed really saturated, and it contributed to the overall mood of the film for me.

I enjoyed the moral ambiguity of the stories and the characters.

These people are impassioned and imperfect. They’re very real.

And more than one of them is someone you don’t want to f@#$ with.

That moral ambiguity extends to the story itself.

There is no clear-cut line between right and wrong, and I enjoyed that.

I’m old enough and well-educated enough to handle a movie without a one-sided moral perspective.

I don’t really want to talk about the plot too much, because it would give it away.

But I will say that the acting is really good, and I enjoyed the story the second time around.

If you watch the movie, you’ll get to see the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance, which happens every year during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Speaking of seeing interesting things, I’m not sure, but I think I saw something we’re not supposed to see in one scene.

Remember when I said “What a difference a few years makes”?

Well, that applies to more than my opinion.

Back in 2010,   Fire of Conscience/火龍 featured Mandarin-speaking bad guys, a Mandarin-speaking ex-hooker, and bad cops who get away with stuff.

Four years later, those things are probably a lot harder to put in a movie.

Which is a shame, because Fire of Conscience is a good movie, and I think you should see it.