Director: Herman Yau
Writer: Herman Yau, Erica Li (Screenplay)
Starring: Andy Lau, Wu Jiang, Jia Song, Philip Keung, Ron Ng, Leo Zi-yi Wang, Feliz Wong, Sau Sek
Plot: When a terrorist who specializes in explosives takes hold of an underground tunnel, he threatens to kill hostages if his demands are not met.
Tagline – 2km long, over 100k vehicles a day. A security nightmare. Today that nightmare becomes a reality.
Runtime: 1 Hour 59 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Shock Wave starts as we meet the bomb disposal officer JS Cheung (Lau) who has been undercover in a terrorist organisation who have been using explosives in their criminal actions, he leads the fight to bring them to justice, locking up the criminals, with his colleagues showing him all the respect he has earnt.
Years later Peng Hong (Jiang) is looking for revenge on the city, holding hostages in the express underground tunnel unless his demands are met, with JS needing to go against him to try and limit the number of casualties the hostage situation will leave.
Thoughts on Shock Wave
Thoughts – Shock Wave will put a bomb disposal expert against a mastermind terrorist that is willing to use any form of explosive to get what he wants, after the two clash in a more personal battle years before. This will play out in the similar style of a Die Hard or a Speed with the one cop figure needing to do everything to make sure he saves as many people as he possibly can. We see JS needing to figure out how to stop the most explosions during the film, using his amazing calm to make this happen, this is helped by a brilliant leading performance from Andy Lau, who could easily see this character put in the top list of any hostage situation cop performances ever. When it comes to the motivation, we have the personal and business ones, which falls into how we saw Die Hard 3 unfold. The action is great, with car chases, explosions and strategical situations being played out to make each moment have an intensity about it. When it comes to the explosions involved, we have brilliant special effects being used to make them show the true devastation involved with them.
Final Thoughts – Shock Wave is an intense action movie that feels relentless.
