Memorable villain

Fung said Raging Fire would not have been a success if it had been a "popcorn action movie", adding that it takes a step forward in reflecting on and discussing humanity.

In the movie, Ngor's last line, a question to Bong, resonates with many viewers: "If you had chased Coke (the suspect killed by Tse's character) that day, would our destinies have been reversed?"

One comment posted on Hong Kong's film information platform read: "It's a hard question to answer. It's not as simple as always being moral and upright. Knowing our weaknesses as such, we must keep in mind the need to think independently and remind ourselves of the difference between right and wrong."

When the movie was released on the mainland, the number of mentions, reading about and interaction with Tse on Sina Weibo rose by 500 percent in a day to more than 770,000, well ahead of fellow star Yen and searches for the film's title.

Reeve Wong, a film critic based in Hong Kong, said that after a four-year absence from the big screen, Tse's return brought a memorable villain to the cinema.

Over the years, Hong Kong filmmakers have persisted with this classic genre, the critic said. Viewers were riveted by the power struggles between two deputy commanders in Cold War, which debuted in 2012. They were also shocked when terrorist bombs in Shock Wave 2(2020) destroyed Hong Kong.

Starring Andy Lau, Shock Wave 2, which grossed more than 1.3 billion yuan, tells the story of a former bomb disposal officer who loses his memory at a terrorist bombing site. The hero is later named as the prime suspect in multiple bombings.

Lau's character swings between good and evil, epitomizing Hong Kong police thrillers that tug at viewers' heartstrings, Wong said. Such conflicts are best exemplified in the Infernal Affairs trilogy, with a policeman and a gangster working undercover in each other's camps.

Wong believes the police thriller will make its next breakthrough in its perception of humanity.

"There is nothing more powerful than mining the treasures of humanity through one's struggle with the outside world," Wong added.

Danny Lee, who is among Hong Kong's earliest crime film directors and actors, said there is now a chance for police thrillers to focus more on storytelling and character, rather than action.

This shift would mark a return to the starting point, instead of being a new approach, Lee said. Crime films in the 1960s and '70s tended to focus on community offenses, involving police who were poorly educated and criminals living in violent neighborhoods.

"What matters in such stories is what the police were thinking, what the villains were thinking," he said.

Lee's award-winning film Law with Two Phases (1984) offered a fresh, real-life approach to creating Hong Kong cop dramas. He plays a dedicated officer who accidentally kills a young boy in a gunfight with a seasoned bank robber experiencing unjust treatment until he apprehends the criminal to clear his name.