Charm before the storm: Andy Lau and Gordon Lam talk about friendship and Firestorm

ANDY LAU TAK-WAH – who may well be the most popular actor in contemporary Hong Kong cinema today – once worked as a nighttime lounge singer in a little-known diner. It was a time when the aspiring entertainer had just signed a contract with TVB, which paid a meagre salary, and had to do odd jobs at remote locations to make ends meet. Television actor Alex Man Chi-leung was a notable and regular guest at Lau’s performances. The two have since become great friends and have collaborated on many film projects.

The 52-year-old superstar is telling me this in a sun-drenched corner of a photographic studio in Chai Wan; it’s just one of many anecdotes from the long and eventful career of one of our cinema’s greats. Currently a three-time best actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards and a two-time best actor at Taipei’s Golden Horse Film Festival, Lau begins his story by sipping his coffee, finds it “way too sweet”, and calls for an assistant to give him another cup.

We’re here to, presumably, chat about his latest action blockbuster Firestorm, which is scripted and directed by Alan Yuen Kam-lun, a regular screenwriter for action filmmaker Benny Chan Muk-sing. Lau’s co-star, the 46-year-old actor Gordon Lam Ka-tung, is a former TVB mainstay who has seemingly failed to replicate his popularity on the big screen at the start of the noughties, appearing in a string of assured supporting roles without ever headlining a major project. It turns out that Lam was introduced to Lau by Man in 2000. Lau recalls: “He told me to please help him take care of Lam Katung, this …” Lam finishes off the sentence for his mentor and former boss, “this thing.”

“Yes, this thing. I was asked to take care of this thing called Lam Ka-tung,” says Lau, turning to Lam. “This guy was really lucky. He got to know me right after I’d paid off all my debts.”

I tell Lau that I’ve read in the press that a significant factor behind his decision to finance, produce and perform in Firestorm was to offer Lam his first big break as a leading man, something that eluded Lam for more than a decade. “You’ve got full marks there,” Lau says, in a mischievous tone. “You’ve got me absolutely right.”

In their new film Firestorm, which is released on the mainland today before opening in Hong Kong on December 19, Lau plays a righteous senior police inspector who feels increasingly compelled to bend the rules in order to pursue cold-blooded robbers, while Lam portrays an ex-con who struggles to win back his girlfriend on account of his criminal lifestyle. Although the two characters are shown to be fierce high-school rivals before eventually fighting on opposite sides of the law, the stakes in this 3-D action thriller are indeed much higher than their personal enmity.

With its impressively constructed scenes of gun battles and large-scale explosions, some of which are set in Central, there are brief moments of spectacle that would sit well in a war or disaster movie. Lau estimates the production costs to be over HK$80 million.