The White Storm

A Hong Kong crime film. Three men have been friends since childhood. Two work in narcotics, one has been undercover for years and wants out: his wife is pregnant and he made a promise. One last job comes up. There is a large drug boss in Thailand and the operation will be run across the border. The operation falls apart. From there the film is about a choice. A moment comes in the field when it is clear only one of two men can be saved, and the third makes the decision. Five years pass. The second half is about consequences. The survivors cannot look at each other, one has left the service, one still carries the decision, and the man believed lost comes back. What the narrative is interested in is not drugs but debt: the account between three friends does not close, and the final confrontation is built on it. The action is at the genre's usual measure: the gunfights are long, firing without aiming is almost absent, and the last section is staged like a siege. Lau Ching-wan, Louis Koo and Nick Cheung are in the cast; the three of them together are the film's main material. Benny Chan directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hong Kong police films and crime built on friendship between men. Who it is not for: anyone looking for restrained melodrama; the emotional scenes are held very long and the ending is excessive.