Kung fu legend Donnie Yen (Hero, Seven Swords) returns as the police force's most dangerous detective, building a case against a vicious trio of drug smuggling brothers. When evidence is destroyed and witnesses are murdered, he takes the fight directly to his enemies - no holds barred.

My expectations were quite high for this one, as I had heard from several people that it is definetly a great martial arts action film. I also see a lot of comparisons to the previously released "SPL aka Kill Zone" and rightfully so, since Flashpoint has both the same director (Wilson Yip) and the same action star (Donnie Yen). Though I find Flashpoint not quite up to par overall with SPL, that's still saying quite a bit, since SPL seems to be the film to beat these days. But what Flashpoint may lack in overall tone, it more than makes up for with breathtakingly superb fight action, Donnie Yen style.

Now when I say Donnie Yen style, it's cool and it's MMA (mixed martial arts). Well, at least he's always trying to act cool (as many reviewers will point out about Yen) and I guess it works, but its never necessary. Yen is so skillfull with his choreogrpahy and skill that that's plenty cool enough for me. Flashpoint is praised for its incredible fight action, but it will have to wait about an hour into the film for it to begin, When it does, it is intense and never lets up. The final 30 minutes of the film is the huge climax.

Tensions and emoitons are at the highest (I want to say almost comparable to SPL at this point, and ironically the stories are somewhat similar as far as Yen's character is concerned). The tension can be felt in the fights, as the past hour of the film all comes together in what is to be a spectacular finish. There is a decent shootout that occurs throughout fields of grass before we see the big one on one between Donnie Yen and our main villain - Collin Chou (Matrix Sequals, Forbidden Kingdom). The fight lasts 8 minutes and is almost unlike anything I have seen. Even Yen and Chou stated that this fight was the most difficult and accomplished of their careers thus far. It is fast, furious, and complete with a few slow motion kicks and punches that all felt perfectly placed - you can almost feel the raw power behind a Donnie Yen knockout.

As good as the climax of Flashpoint may be, its the first hour that keeps it from being a perfect film. Though the story is interesting and worth watching to feel the true impact of the exciting conclusion, its still a slow ride that has almost no action to keep things moving. The characters, plot, script etc also don't have quite the effect of that in SPL, and the villain Collin Chou was basically an average villain without any unique qualities (until the last 30 minutes of the film!)

Despite the slow hour of the film, I can't stress enough how much it is still worth it when that last 30 minutes comes around. I'm not sure we'll see a fight quite like that again anytime soon. It is definelty worth buying this dvd and you will want to watch it several times as I already have. 4.5 Overall for exceptional martial arts action.