★★★☆☆
Following up as a sequel (of 2014’s Z Storm) that nobody called for, it is amazing how some people get to produce films even without commercial demand when others have great difficulties producing one without justifying strong commercial potential.
Nevertheless, director David Lam returns to bring together two teams from the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong and the Serious Crimes Unit of the Hong Kong Police Force respectively. Finding themselves in a semi-professional collaboration, ICAC principal investigator William Luk (Louis Koo) and Inspector Lau (Julian Cheung) of the Serious Crimes Unit took interest in an illegal bookmaking syndicate.
Going skin-deep on the crime in subject, narrative development only provides sufficient to propel the story forward without enlightening the audience with insights into the business of illegal bookmaking. This is further hindered by the unrealistic portrayal of the illegal conduct of business, where a sweet young thing negotiates business deals.
The complexity of a real life syndicate is expected to be more sophisticated to adapt to today’s nature of the business. Albeit secondary for genre film productions, such level of detail through vigorous research always brings value to the table for enhanced appreciation.
Character work is also half-cooked where onscreen dialogues perform touch-and-go to prevent proper relativity between the audience and the characters. Inspector Lau is referred to as an ex-compulsive gambler who brought trouble and pain to his family members, but the tension between Lau’s sister (played by Dada Chan) and him comes across as confusing.
Chan does remind viewers of her new transition from a sex symbol to a troubled pub waitress who found herself intertwined between her brother and professional assassin (played by Vic Chou). Despite playing the love interest of the assassin, the script is unfortunately distracted into pursuing other threads of superficiality instead. Chou’s performance as an assassin of intriguing background is good enough to prompt interest into his past.
Cheung and Koo are themselves in the film without any outstanding range of performance noted. It is a pity that both characters didn’t find opportunities to further their chemistry to explore exciting dynamics between ICAC and the Hong Kong Police Force. In stark contrast to its closest counterpart, Cold War 2 is way ahead of S Storm in the game.
S Storm has tons of missed opportunities and shortfalls to even be taken seriously by viewers despite its serious thematic subject. No one knows the rationale behind the film title – perhaps an operation poorly executed by Lam.
Also published on InCinemas.sg
cineJay 