Poor little kid; mommy gets murdered and his father is a bad tempered ex. cop alcoholic who could not care less that his ex. wife is murdered. He does not seem to care much for his son either, but maybe he will change ? Can the father shape up, stop drinking and start taking care of his son ? Will he even try ? Will his son accept him if he does not help him to find his mothers killer ?
Blue Lightning is a well made and entertaining dramathriller. The murder mystery is nothing special in itself (we will never see any impressive detective work), but this movie contains more than a murder mystery. It is well written and there is caracter development through very good acting and good dialogue that makes the viewer care about the characters so that it gets more exciting when they are in danger and that happens a lot. Another good thing is that some of the things that happen here we seldom get to see in a Hollywood movie (from small things like a main character throwing up on screen to more important stuff, see the movie and find out yourself).
Famous actor Danny Lee (that has done so many routine roles in other movies) is good as the alcoholic father and the kid (Kwan Yuen Wong) is even better as his son, he is actually brilliant. Tony Leung Ka Fai is also good and believable in his role as a police officer trying to solve the murder case.
The pacing is good and it never gets boring. The suspense scenes works and they are never far away. We don't have to suffer through any H.K. humor scenes and the whole ending is good (not only the final confrontation). There is violence in the movie, it starts with a well made bloody but not gory murder scene, there are beatings and some gunplay (including a nice shot in the head during a suspense scene in an apartment and bloodsquibs in the final shootout), but nothing extreme, this is a movie about emotions with several exciting chase scenes.
You will be entertained. My rating is 7 / 10 (If the movie would have had more extreme violence it would have been an 8 or 9 and if the murder mystery was a little more complicated to solve it could have been a masterpiece.)
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