As The Light Goes Out
Derek Kwok
The story: A perfect storm of factors come together, on Christmas Eve no less, to create a fiery disaster. A liquor warehouse goes up in flames. If it spreads to a nearby power plant, Hong Kong will be plunged into darkness. Senior firefighter Sam (Nicholas Tse) has to wrest control of the situation together with his buddy Chill (Shawn Yue), China-transfer Ocean (Hu Jun) and old hand Li (Simon Yam).

Think fires are dangerous? It is the smoke that is often more lethal.
We are informed as such at the start of the movie and it also indicates how As The Light Goes Out intends to distinguish itself from other fire disaster flicks.
And the smoke is indeed impressively menacing in its various incarnations from poisonous yellow fumes to thick smothering blankets of it which reduce visibility to almost zero.
Add in greedily devouring flames and the threat of explosions and collapsing walkways and buildings and there is drama aplenty on the screen.
Writer-director Derek Kwok (Gallants, 2010), however, is not content with incendiary action alone and ups the stakes on the plotlines.
But in trying to top the drama of the fire, he ends up with overwrought stories instead.
For starters, there is the backstory of how Sam, Chill and Yip (Andy On) once disobeyed orders on the ground.
Yip was later promoted ahead of the other two and now, Yip and Sam are classic frenemies.
And every other firefighter has a tragic past and/or troubled present.
Sam doubts himself because of the incident, and on top of which, things are strained with his girlfriend.
Chill, who is separated from his wife, has a son who happens to be on a school visit to the power plant on the day things go horribly wrong.
And what are the chances that the over-achieving Ocean had lost his son in a fire?
As the blaze rages away, the characters are propelled by everything from fatherly love and the possibility of redemption to sheer bravery.
Oh, and there is a typhoon about to strike as well.
There is just too much going on.
It does not help that when the actors are all suited up in their firefighting outfits, it can be rather challenging trying to identify exactly who is whom, even with a solid cast of actors.
There is Nicholas Tse (The Viral Factor, 2012) putting on a stoic front as Sam, Shawn Yue (Love In The Buff, 2012) as a distressed dad and Simon Yam (Control, 2013) chewing up scenes as the tough and gruff Li.
What the film does offer is a series of intense sequences in which lives hang in the balance.
As well as possibly the most heroic cigarette ever lit up on screen.
(ST)