Prison On Fire

Ein solides Gefängnisdrama. Es wäre aber nicht schlecht gewesen, wenn der Plot umfangreicher gewesen wäre. In den 107 Minuten passiert nicht viel. Die Schauspieler sind aber ausgezeichnet, die Kämpfe richtig naturalistisch und Emotionen gibt es hier auch. Das demokratische System im Gefängnis, das die Beziehung der Häftlinge zu den Polizisten betrifft, hat mich ein bisschen überrascht. ***1/2 (05.08.2005)

To start off with, this may seem to be an average and interesting story that has been presented in movie form several times already about the hard life behind bars, but as the movie continues, it increases in quality. Especially toward the end, the atmosphere thickens massively. It is kept above water in the introductory part by the actors alone. Chow Yun-Fat is absolutely convincing again and charisma simply oozes from him, which, knowing him, is hardly surprising, but the others’ performances are also great and you have no problem in believing that they are real cons. Like a lot of HK movies, this builds mainly on the friendship of the central duo, but I would still categorize it as a rough and raw picture like Lockdown, rather than a “human interest" movie like The Shawshank Redemption. (14.05.2005)

Only after about thirty minutes did the talking stop and something started to happen. What caught my attention is that Ringo Lam (unlike, for example, Frank Darabont in The Shawshank Redemption) focuses more on the prison's routines and rules rather than on the characters and their relationships, this is the main and crucial point of the story. Although the story itself is quite simple, the skillful, typically sharp Hong Kong direction, raw setting, and extremely rough action scenes stand out even more. They are scarce during must of the film, but towards the end, it's a real blast. (04.06.2005)