Cesium Fallout 焚城 (2024) Review: A Melodramatic But Reasonably Engaging Radiation-Disaster Thriller
The year of omnipresent Andy Lau continues with Cesium Fallout, marking his fifth appearance from the early January release of I Did It My Way to the recent atrocious plane-hijacking thriller High Forces. The latter is easily one of his worst movies to date but thankfully, he bounces back in Cesium Fallout which is heavily marketed as Hong Kong’s first radiation disaster blockbuster.
Inspired by the news of an e-waste (electronic waste) pollution that becomes a dumping ground for illegal disposal, the story — credited to a whopping five screenwriters (!) including Mak Tin-Shu, Shum Kwan-Sin, Wong Wing-Yu, Frances To and Oscar Fung — imagines what happens if a densely populated city like Hong Kong suffers from a radiation-leak crisis. Or more specifically, a leak resulting from the fire breakout at a recycling yard in Northern New Territories’ Queen’s Hill that triggers the Cesium-137 device.
This, in turn, puts Hong Kong citizens — seven million of them, to be exact — in jeopardy and prompted the government to take immediate action. Enter Simon Fan (Andy Lau), a nuclear radiation expert enlisted to assist the Acting Chief Executive Cecilia Fong (Karen Mok) in determining the best solution to solve the crisis before it becomes a major environmental disaster. The movie also focuses on a team of Luen Wo Hui firefighting unit led by Lau Siu Keung (Kenny Wong) and other firefighters from Madam Chan Mei Yan (Louise Wong), Lai Kit Fung (Bai Yu) to Chainsmoker (Tse Kwan-Ho), Water (Ho Kai-Wa) and Finger (Locker Lam).
Seasoned cinematographer-turned-director Anthony Pun handles his biggest task so far to spearhead a big-budget studio blockbuster after co-directing alongside Alan Mak in 2017’s Extraordinary Mission before making his solo directorial feature in Chow Yun-Fat-starred One More Chance last year. The movie showcases plenty of major effect-heavy set pieces, notably in the earlier scene when the huge explosion in the recycling yard sends shockwaves that hurtle debris across the nearby shops and even the passing vehicles along the flyover. The CGI isn’t the most seamless but sufficient for a Hong Kong movie.
I noticed that Cesium Fallout doesn’t take shortcuts when detailing different protocols in managing the emergency response crisis with the expected red tape coming from the upper government officials. We see how the Acting Chief Executive, an appointed nuclear radiation expert and the rest — among them includes Bowie Lam’s Director of Fire Services and Kent Cheng’s Secretary for Security — in the meeting room engage in verbal confrontations. It’s a war of words that I initially thought Pun is going to pull a series of overacting moments but his restrained direction manages to keep his actors in check.
For instance, I can imagine Andy Lau would be chewing the scenery if it fell under the direction of a lesser filmmaker. But this isn’t the case here as Lau’s steadfast role as Simon Fan is competently portrayed, whose guilt-ridden character resulting from his sad past that costs the life of his firefighter wife (Tong Yao) is looking to seek redemption. We learn he used to be a politician himself serving as a financial secretary who tabled a new policy intended for the Hong Kong economy to prosper further, only to end with a tragedy that forever scarred his life.
A story like this wouldn’t have passed the strict China censorship so Pun and the screenwriters manage to work things around by setting Cesium Fallout between 1996 and 2007, which is way before China introduced the strict national security law in 2020.
The movie also marks the long-awaited return of Karen Mok and here, she is perfectly typecast as a no-nonsense Acting Chief Executive while Bai Yu delivers solid support as the dedicated firefighter, Lai Kit Fung. The ensemble cast has plenty more familiar faces from both older and current generations but not every actor here gets ample room to shine such as Kent Cheng mostly relegated to an underwhelming role as the Secretary for Security while Michael Wong and Michael Chow both show up in perfunctory roles of shady businessmen.
Others look miscast here including somewhat unconvincing turns from Louise Wong as the firefighter madam, Chan Mei Yan and Jeffrey Ngai as a rookie firefighter longing to make an impression. Cesium Fallout clocks nearly 140 minutes long and for a movie with the race-against-the-clock countdown (they have to do something about the radiation leak before the impending rain complicates the matters further), the pace can be erratic at times.
Pun’s penchant for histrionics tends to make the movie overly melodramatic in some scenes, notably during the climactic third act. Pun, who also doubled as a cinematographer himself, deserves equal mention for his visual panache including the daylight and especially nighttime shots with billowing smoke and flame illuminating the dark sky against the dreary-looking recycling yard. It’s far from a great movie that I’m expecting in the first place but Cesium Fallout remains a reasonably thrilling disaster movie worth checking out on the big screen.
