Cesium Fallout

Story: In 1996, financial secretary Simon Fan (Andy Lau) introduces a law that is supposed to make Hong Kong even more attractive for companies. However, it brings about that it is quite easy to smuggle highly dangerous substances in recyclable electronic waste across the Hong Kong port. When a fire breaks out on a container ship there is an explosion because of the illegally imported substances, and Simon's wife, who works for the fire department, dies. Ten years later, Simon is an expert for dangerous materials being smuggled into the country. In the case of an apparently harmless fire at a junkyard, it quickly becomes clear that there are not only highly explosive substances stored there, but that radioactivity escapes too. Simon is called in as an advisor to a crisis management team led by Cecilia Fong (Karen Mok). The situation becomes more and more critical, as it soon turns out that there is also cesium somewhere in the burning junkyard. In the meantime, the fire cannot be brought under control, and if it would spread to the radioactive material, a catastrophe is guaranteed. Even worse, the firefighting operations cannot be carried out, as cesium also explodes when it comes into contact with water. Unfortunately, a storm with heavy rain also makes its way to Hong Kong. Simon not only gets an idea of the situation on site, where Lifeng (Bai Yu), the brother of Simon's deceased wife, is fighting the fire, but the consultant also has to deal with politicians who don't seem to understand the seriousness of the situation.

Review: Disaster movies from China can be a pretty fun ride. "Skyfire" for example, was a low-budget production that was constructed according to the typical rules of the genre but turned out to be so dumb that it had come full circle again and was simply fun to watch. The fire department spectacle "The Bravest" was a little more serious - in the end, we got a lot of melodrama here as well, though. "Cesium Fallout" is now supposed to raise the bar a little higher with its fairly high production costs, but it has to deal with the same problems as the aforementioned movie. To be honest, though, you wouldn't necessarily expect anything else. Still, it's quite shocking how flat the characters can actually turn out despite a running time of 136 minutes. Numerous characters are crammed into the movie, but each of them only gets a few scenes to outline something similar to a backstory. The reason for this is, of course, completely obvious: Some of the heroic firemen have to sacrifice themselves. And yes, only men, not the women, even though we do have quite a few female firefighters here. But apart from the politician, the female characters turn out even more bland than the rest.

But you can probably shorten this point of criticism, because even Andy Lau ("Shock Wave 2") in the leading role comes across quite soulless. And that's despite the fact that the movie makes sure to constantly show the family circumstances, after all, Simon's brother-in-law, who has never forgiven him for the death of his sister, is also on duty during the disaster situation, and the actual plot is also repeatedly interrupted with insertions about the relationship between Simon and his daughter. Although this is supposed to show that something is really at stake here, we still don't care one bit about the individual characters. In addition, the script makes sure to combine as many coincidences as possible so that the catastrophe can take on really big proportions. The fact that the lack of laws or the existence of loopholes in the recycling of electronic waste is criticized can be quite interesting, but since once again our noses are rubbed into it and we are even presented with a text panel during the credits, we feel pretty manipulated. In addition, it raises the question of the movie's intention: Does it expect people to take to the streets and protest against politics/laws? In China?!? It's interesting that Chinese censorship did not see any problems here.

Obviously, the movie also "shines" with all the classic mistakes. Not only do contingencies always intertwine in a way that the absolute worst-case scenario is about to happen - of course, a huge storm is moving right towards the fire -, but in addition, multiple firefighters also sacrifice themselves at once, even though it's hard to understand exactly why, or if maybe just one could have sufficed at least. The fact that something always goes wrong throws the story's credibility completely overboard, and this also becomes clear with the characters' behavior. The needle of the Geiger counter spikes up, but people just look at each other in shock and stop moving altogether instead of just making a quick getaway or completing the task at hand as fast as possible. Later, firefighters even turn into experts for explosives. But the most shocking thing is probably that Michael Wong, who plays the villain here, blurts out his first English sentence far too late! Since Wong was already a meme before the word even existed, you can at least forgive him the caricatural portrayal of the villain. Which is not that important anyway considering the movie's numerous other problems.

At least Karen Mok ("So Close") is able to cut a pretty fine figure as the head of the crisis team. The fact that you have to choose between bad and worse decisions is quite realistic - if only the rest of the movie had also gotten a spark of this kind of realism too ... The narrative regularly comes to a halt. The principle used here is that the people fighting the crisis leave a problem for the time being, because they obviously can't do much about it, then this problem grows by factor x, but unfortunately there's not much to do about it either, so the catastrophe ultimately takes on epic proportions. Sure, a disaster movie only thrives on a gigantic scale, but when the storm alone looks as if it would cause the end of the world, you can only grin in amusement. But at least this makes sure that there is always something happening and that the pace doesn't drop too much. However, you have to bear in mind that the somewhat quieter dramatic scenes hardly have an emotional impact and so the movie is simply way too long.

Somehow, "Cesium Fallout" also tries to claim a certain kind of authenticity, which is quite funny given the points of criticism mentioned. If you look at the fact that there are no smartphones yet, the movie probably takes place about twenty years ago. And then, you are constantly confronted with the message: One day, this is could actually happen. Anyone who has ever seen even just one disaster movie knows about the exaggerations and the logical errors of this subgenre. So, the question is just whether you can embark on this kind of journey. If you can, you will at least get some exciting scenes. And the special effects look quite well done too. Most viewers will probably not have expected anything else, and fans of this genre will simply enjoy the ride. Considering the title of the movie there could have been a low-budget flick hidden in here, but fortunately that's not the case. Despite everything, though, it's a shame that the script actually wanted to put emphasis on the drama but only did the bare minimum to achieve it - if it does at all. So, all we get is some light entertainment and at least some nice fireworks.

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