Writer: Peter Chai

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Watch this if you liked: "New Police Story" & "Internal Affairs"

Hong Kong director, Dante Lam's previous action movies, "Beast Stalker" (2008) and "The Stool Pigeon" (2010) made a strong contribution to the success of Nick Cheung and Nicholas Tse at the Hong Kong Film Awards. This year, the award-winning filmmaker presents you with Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou together with his favourite returning cast, Nicholas Tse, in the new Lunar New Year blockbuster, "The Viral Factor".

Lam worked with producer Candy Leung and screenwriter Jack Ng in this 122 minutes action thriller that tells the story of an injured international criminal cop's journey, Jon Wan (Chou) in finding his long-lost older brother named Wan Yang (Tse), who got himself involved with a group of counter terrorists' effort in spreading an extremely dangerous virus.

Jay Chou has previously received recognition for his directorial debut in 2007's "Secret" with his own unique art skills and perspectives, but movie critics did not give much credit for his acting in "Curse Of The Golden Flower", alongside Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li.
Today, sadly things do not change much for Chou. The audiences need not expect anything different or have high expectations for his facial expression and tone of voice in this film. However, you might be impressed with his courageous attempt on an action-packed movie like this for the very first time in his career. His movements and shooting skills are considered good as compared to the more experienced action star like Nicholas Tse.

Tse, who was last year's Best Actor Award recipient at the Hong Kong Film Awards, shows his acting skills in playing a big-hearted criminal who tries every way to protect his family despite getting himself into big trouble. Audiences will never get disappointed with the 32-year-old's professional attitude, as he gives his very best in performing the fist-punching, car crashing scenes and jumping off from high rise buildings which truly shows how well the actor is capable of maintaining his cool-ness through the fast paced story.

The audience will be able to have a taste of Malaysian culture as well, as most of the scenes are shot in Malaysia aside from the introduction scene which was filmed in Jordan. Credits should be given to Lam's brilliant effort in creating the thrilling car-chasing and exploding shots with the presence of the huge Malaysian crowd at a remarkably packed setting like Pavilion Shopping Center, KL Sentral, and Jalan Pudu in Kuala Lumpur.

Overall, if you're die-hard fan of Hong Kong action films, go watch "The Viral Factor", as it is truly a movie that contains the action and stunts that are worthy to be compared to the Hollywood action scenes that we usually tend to be amazed with.

Cinema Online, 17 January 2012