The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell

This is high-octane Hong Kong action cinema at its best. Undercover cops Billy and Wing had it all worked out. They set up drug smuggler Suchat, but the operation goes awry, with Wing’s cover blown and Billy, badly injured, leaving with Suchat, his cover still intact. Suchat relocates to Thailand and expands his ambitions, leaving the two cops with an even greater challenge of figuring out how to bring him down.

Benny Chan began the White Storm series in 2013, with Herman Yau taking over as director for the first sequel in 2019. He returns for this latest – and best – instalment and like the previous films, it features the same principal characters but can easily be watched as a standalone entry. What links the three is the breathless pacing and kinetic action sequences, combining state-of-the-art visual effects and some hair-raising physical stunts – a signature of Hong Kong genre filmmaking. Plot is secondary to sensation, but Yau’s script maintains the internal logic of this world and, with actors Aaron Kwok and Louis Koo as the cops, and Sean Lau as Suchat, he ensures there is a conveyor belt of punchy, frequently self-deprecating one-liners.

– Ian Haydn Smith

 

The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell also screens at Pathé de Kuip:

Thursday 1 February at 21.00, €13

Tickets Pathé de Kuip