"Prison on Fire" is one of the trilogy of violent films made by Hong Kong filmmaker Ringo Lam, the others being "School on Fire" and "City on Fire". As with "City", "Prison" also stars Chow Yun-Fat.
Chow plays a character similar to the one he played in "City", kind of a charismatic goofball. His wisecracking presence is counteracted by another actor who plays a serious inmate, a guy I don't recognize who is very handsome and wears glasses.
The movie is about the two men adjusting to prison life.
The two men bond when Glasses discovers Chow's sensitive side.
The movie is fairly violent, though ironically, not more than "School on Fire". Most of the violence looks like slapstick. The violent individuals act like they're on speed, shaking and spasming around, and their punches and kicks are clearly not very hard. It reminds me of when I was in drama class at high school, and all anyone wanted to do was pretend to beat each other up.
The movie has two separate scenes where someone is hit over the head with a billy club, and instead of collapsing backwards from the force of the blow, they stay stock still, and blood runs down their face.
"Prison on Fire" is pretty good, but would have benefited from a stronger narrative. I assume one of the guards was crooked (aren't they always?) and there seemed to be something going on with Chow's character sacrificing himself for the bespectacled guy, but I didn't really understand it.
