I have a feeling Qin Pengfei is gonna be a name I remember in the future.
This is such a breath of fresh air for Chinese cinema, considering the industry (in both China and Hong Kong) has been pumping out less interesting stuff than previous decades, at least for me. First off, the storyline and writing is actually pretty solid. A cop returns to his hometown to investigate a disappearance involving a rich and powerful criminal. There's a few surprises, and it's not afraid to get dark and violent. There's also some great characters and performances. Chinese cinema tends to be too melodramatic for me, but I found the acting here to be pretty great across the board. Ashton Chen as the lead plays a believably tough cop, putting in some amazing martial arts work. The same goes for Bei'er Bao who plays the perfectly maniacal lead bad guy. But how's the action? Luckily, it's absolutely fantastic. Qin Pengfei directs them so well, with lots of cool and passionate camerawork. Close-ups when you need them, pulling back when you need to see the big picture. Well thought out fight locations and usage of the environment. It really did remind me of a film from the glory days of Chinese cinema.
Qin Pengfei has a very impressive 9 films directed since 2019, 3 of which came out this year. That's a very impressive output. Hopefully he will be a name more people recognize soon.
