Fans of "City on Fire" (1987), Ringo Lam's earlier team-up with Chow Yun-Fat, will sorely miss the compelling storyline and dynamic action scenes that Lam delivered 4 years before directing Prison on Fire II. The fight sequences, despite their nomination at the Hong Kong Film Festival, were lackluster. The characters don't mean anything to me. Finally, through no fault of anyone but the distributor, the English subtitles are so bad at times that I really hadn't the foggiest what the characters were saying. Again, not Lam's fault. Chow Yun-Fat does his nice-guy thing, but sadly never gets an opportunity to display his martial arts talents; instead he spends a lot of time picking himself up after getting beaten up. He pairs really well with Danny Lee in 1987: the two play off each other's sense of humor and share excellent fight scenes. Chow Yun-Fat was on his own in "Prison on Fire", and the film suffers from the lack of acting talent. I can only hope that Lam was working on a more limited budget than he had for City on Fire, because this film lacks all the impressive effects and action that he deployed skillfully in the latter. There is little joy in this film.
Review of Prison on Fire II
