Bursting Point: Dante Lam returns with gruesome crime thriller

3/5 stars

Hong Kong cinema fans who like their crime thrillers brutal and over-the-top are in for a treat with Bursting Point, which marks celebrated action film director Dante Lam Chiu-yin’s return to local filmmaking after almost a decade of churning out patriotic mega-blockbusters in mainland China.

Co-directing with first-time filmmaker Calvin Tong Wai-hon, Lam – who came up with the story and served as producer – has presumably left all his vicious ideas out on the screen.

His film’s sadistic penchant for burning characters alive must have contributed to its Category III (adults only) rating from Hong Kong censors.

Fast forward two years, and Bong is again carrying out an operation against Young’s illegal drug business, this time with help from strong-willed undercover police officer Ming (William Chan Wai-ting). Things get personal on both sides when Young’s brother dies in the aftermath.

While all of this may sound generic, Lam’s story fascinates with the way it keeps piling on tragic twists (family members are inevitably harmed) and horrific deaths (by corrosive acid, grenades, and more) – more than most conventional police thrillers would care to indulge.

It all builds up to a deadly showdown in a giant cave, although the screenplay takes a back seat to the gallery of grisly violence that Lam applies to both sides of the fight.

The filmmaker’s equal-opportunity motto is such that a child is stabbed in the stomach in one unexpectedly wicked scene.

Bursting Point does not have a convincing enough story at its core to transform it into a cathartic experience, but the film is so determined in making every casualty count that it may well inspire a strange admiration in the viewers who do not look away.