Black and White: The Dawn of Justice (2014)

Plot summary (story synopsis): Hotshot police detective Wu Ying-Hsiung (Mark Chao) is on the trail of a mysterious group of terrorists who are blowing up bridges and trains in Harbour City. He "meets cute" with Chen Zhen (Lin Gengxin), a suave detective from another police precinct. Despite their constant bickering, the two are thrown together by circumstances and race to prevent further bombings.

The terrorists turn out to be a doomsday cult. They plan to isolate Harbour City by bombing its transportation links to the rest of the country, then zap it back to the stone age with stolen EMP (electro magnetic pulse) missiles, and a virus bio-weapon. The plan is to start a renaissance from the ashes of the ruined city.

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This is a sequel to 2012's Black and White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault, as well as a prequel to the 2009 TV series Black and White. I haven't watched the earlier movie or the TV series, so I won't be making any comparisons with them.

Dawn of Justice starts of quite well. It's slam-bang action from the start, with a humorous "meet cute" between the two male leads, worthy of 48 Hours or Lethal Weapon. Yes, this is a buddy-buddy cop movie, or at least it tries to be.

Unfortunately the humor and fast pacing doesn't last long and we are soon left with a rather generic terrorist plot, generic bad guys, generic cops and melodramatic hostage situations. I watched the movie a week ago and I seriously cannot remember much about the plot.

There is a lot of fighting - with guns, fists and feet. But it's the standard Hong Kong overkill and you start feeling numb to all the action after a while. The wall-to-wall fighting is especially thick towards the end.

It's nowhere close to the quality of something like Heat, Collateral or Miami Vice. Look at the gunfights in those three Michael Mann movies. There's a sense of drama and realism. Even if you don't know exactly what is going on, you get the feeling that at least one side knows what they are doing and are shooting purposefully.

Say what you will about Hollywood. At least there are many Hollywood movies that try for a new angle on the cops/terrorist genre. They don't always work out, but some do.

In contrast, the Chinese writers and directors are too often going through the motions. Thinking that they can get away with weak plots and unimaginative fights. That audiences will be dazzled and entertained by shallow flash and action.

Chinese moviemakers are simply not trying hard enough. I'm not a John Woo fan, I think he's overrated. But at least he cared about what he was doing.

So yeah, I have lots of gripes. But this one stands out: GPS doesn't work in tunnels. Okay one more - the bomb vest that blew up the police station is too small to have caused that much damage. That's car bomb territory - thousands of pounds of high explosives. And don't get me started on the EMP.