Customs Frontline / 海關戰線 - Movie Review

The Movie: Customs Frontline / 海關戰線

The Director: Herman Yau

The Cast: Nicholas Tse, Jacky Cheung, Karena Lam, Yase Liu, Francis Ng, Brahim Chab

The Story: Hong Kong customs officers discover illegal weapons on a cargo ship and trace them back to an international conflict. Elite agents go undercover, uncovering a transnational operation with roots closer to home.

The Rating: 6 / 10

The Review:

Herman Yau is one of those directors that just keeps churning out project after project and he's been doing it for multiple decades now although this is one of the first films of his I've been able to watch. At first, I thought this was going to be the typical flag waving, overly patriotic type of filmmaking we often get from big budget Chinese cinema and, while there is some of that, I was also impressed with a more mindful approach to the human side of the story as well.

The focus of the movie is on the Hong Kong customs authority fending off threats from smugglers and terrorists around the world which of course means there's going to be plenty of action. While Jacky Cheung and Francis Eng play high ranking officers who are always fighting the internal battles, it's Nicholas Tse who puts in all the work when it comes to fighting and shooting and jumping and stabbing and kicking and all that fun stuff with long time stuntman and fight choreographer Brahim Chab playing the main bad guy that he'll eventually have to face off with.

There is plenty of action to keep things exciting and it was really fun watching Tse fighting off a seemingly endless stream of disposable bad guys. In these types of movies, that never gets old, just like watching Bruce Lee in movies like Enter the Dragon and The Bog Boss or Donnie Yen in pretty much every movie he's ever made. The stuntwork is impressive in the movie with a few innovative spots although I also felt like they could have 

I mentioned how the movie took a more mindful approach than I was expecting and what I mean by that is how the story really explores one of the characters having bi-polar disorder and also the fallout of actions he takes and decisions he makes based on managing the diagnosis. This was much more than simply using a mental health disorder to explain why the villain is the villain, the story places this challenge right into the middle of the people who are seemingly on the right side of the law and doing what they can to keep people safe.

I felt like this added an extra layer of depth to the story although I was hoping for more of an emotional punch to come out of it than what I got. Maybe if more time had been taken to explore that idea but really the point of this movie is the action and making the Customs officers look cool so it was fine. Overall, this was an entertaining movie and I would recommend it for people who dig these types of action movies although it's probably not something that will stick with me or that I will remember down the road.