School on Fire

School On Fire(1988) is a dark, brutal and shocking film from Hong Kong's "docu-drama" director Ringo Lam. This film was meant to be damning expose of the Hong Kong school system and what the future consequences might be if it doesn't get it's act straight. But the censor board whittled away most of the school scenes and kept most of the violent and exploitive subject matter. Even though the film was heavily cut, it's impact is strong. Ching-Ying Lam (MR. Vampire) and Leung Kwong Wong (Ringo Lam regular) play cops that try to topple a local triad boss Roy Cheung (another Ringo Lam regular) with the help of a victimized school girl (Fennie Yuen) and 70's H.K. kung-fu star Damian Lau co-stars as a teacher with morals who risks his job and life to defend his students from the triads and themselves. The direction and style is raw and gritty, it fits perfectly with the subject matter. You can find Ringo Lam's trademark bloody,bone crunching fights and action set pieces along with the usual fine performances from all of the actors. It's a truly depressing and heart wrenching film.

This movie is hard to find. I strongly recommend it and the other "on Fire" films.

Highly Recommended

During the late 1980s, Hong Kong director Ringo Lam was on top of the world with two of his "On Fire" trilogy: PRISON ON FIRE and CITY ON FIRE (both released in 1987). But his third and final "On Fire" trilogy, SCHOOL ON FIRE was greeted with muted response back in 1988. It was such a miserable flop that it only ran a one-week theatrical run and quickly fizzled out at the Hong Kong box office. However, I must say this hugely underrated SCHOOL ON FIRE is surprisingly ranked as Ringo Lam's finest cinematic masterpiece ever made. Never before I've seen a Hong Kong's high-school melodrama so engrossing, yet so remarkably intense that you can almost feel the heat ignited throughout the movie.

When high-school student Chu Yuen-Fong (Fennie Yuen) witnesses a triad beating in the busy street that claimed the life of an unfortunate male student, she faces a lot of pressures from the cops, Hoi (Lam Ching-Ying) and Chuen Ngor (Tommy Wong), his teacher Mr. Wan (Damian Lau) and especially a notorious triad boss Brother Smart (Roy Cheung) who particularly threatens her not to report the incident or suffers terrible consequence. However, Fong ends up testifying anyway which prompted Brother Smart to terrorize her into paying a HK$30,000 legal fee -- which is actually a protection fee. Her best friend Sandy (Sarah Lee) offers help by giving her some money and even hook her up with Brother Scar (Terrence Fok), who falls in love with her immediately for the first time. Unfortunately, tension starts to escalate from bad to worse where everything eventually turns into a full-blown nightmare.

While I believe some viewers might question the authenticity that Lam depicted the harsh reality of a high school in Hong Kong, SCHOOL ON FIRE remains an unflinching experience to watch for. Likewise, Lam's direction is gritty in the style of a docudrama, while he certainly knows how to pace the movie so perfectly that there are no single frame wasted with unnecessary fillers. Meanwhile, Nam Yin's script is compelling. Everything in this movie is presented in a pessimistic view where the world is full of grim and despair. Even the large depiction of triads here are not glamorized or romanticized in the way of other Hong Kong filmmakers would do (say, someone like John Woo). Instead, the triads are depicted as capitalists that they are so powerful they even ruled over the school system. Teachers and parents are portrayed as ineffective individuals who can't do much to protect their own children (which of course, the students), while the cops are just as hopeless.

The young cast are all top-notch. Fennie Yuen delivers a breakthrough performance as an ordinary student who subsequently forced to sink deep into a hellhole, while Sarah Lee is similarly engaging as the doomed Sandy. Tse Wai-Kit is particularly despicable as George Chow, a gangster student who always looking for trouble. Even the adult ones are equally strong. Roy Cheung is typically intense as the triad boss, Brother Smart while it's nice to see both Lam Ching-Ying and Damian Lau in unfamiliar, yet perfectly restrained roles (as both of them are usually known for their martial-art roles).

All the technical credits are ace -- Joe Chan's vivid cinematography matches perfectly with Lam's constantly restless cameraworks; Tony Chow's editing is airtight while Lau Chi-Ho and Joe Chu's action choreography are intensely staged with such claustrophobic manner where the depiction of violence are meant to be as brutal and provoking as it gets (especially the all-hell-breaks-loose graphic finale).

Hong Kong director Ringo Lam's (CITY ON FIRE, PRISON ON FIRE 1 and 2, BURNING PARADISE etc.) earlier film SCHOOL ON FIRE (1988) is a very harrowing and bleak film that ranks very high in the list of Lam's often masterful films, which are usually darker, grittier and more violent than other Hong Kong action and crime films, and thus the admirers of the "beautiful Woo cinema" may not like him as much. But Lam is no less talented or noteworthy director and it was finally proved in his 1992 miracle, FULL CONTACT, starring Simon Yam, Chow Yun-Fat and Anthony Wong.

SCHOOL ON FIRE begins with a violent murder committed by some school children/teenagers after a fist fight and chase. It soon turns out that the school is inhabited and terrorized by a bunch of (young) triad gangsters who try to seduce teenagers to join them and to begin a criminal life rather than studying and becoming a potentially good citizen. One girl witnesses the murder and from that on, the life of hers and people close to her start to go straight to hell as the triad members don't want her to testify against them in the court. The film ends in an incredibly fierce bloodbath and the viewer is left in pure disgust towards the film gangsters' ideals and attitudes which led to the horrible conclusion, and that was Lam's intention with this film, and NOT just to make a cheap ultra violent "exploitation film" as one writer in his magazine has suggested.

The film has a great and talented cast which includes younger faces like Roy Cheung as a triad lord, Fennie Yuen as an innocent school girl and the great late Ching-Ying Lam who's remembered from his performances in the masterful MR. VAMPIRE films plus many others, and in SCHOOL he plays a cop trying to remain good and unwilling to use violence. The actors don't overact albeit the script does so at times. The young triads are portrayed believably and they will too see what kind of things their violence results.

The atmosphere is very dark, brutal, bleak and violent. The film has as pessimistic ending as one could expect in an independent and honest film like this. The strong images and scenes are taken even further by the stunning soundtrack by Lowell Lo, who was also responsible for the soundtrack in John Woo's THE KILLER. Especially the usage of music is at its most powerful when the protagonist girl decides to do the saddest thing in her life at the middle part of the film. I can only wonder how effective this film could be in a big screen. Also after the final bloodbath the images shown before the end credits are really haunting and the importance of music in that scene is again remarkable.

This film depicts our attitudes towards violence and revenge and how rotten these attitudes are and what really can be achieved by using violence after all. There are characters who try to remain pure and "good" but most of them turn evil before the end credits, and that is also why the finale is so harrowing to experience. The film is ultra violent and ugly and never glorifies its violence no matter how graphic it gets; it just shows how it is in real life, too, and that is the only honest way to depict violence in Cinema. If a film is violent, that doesn't mean it's exploitation or just low garbage; it is about HOW the violence is handled and shown and what the film maker wants to say with it. In this film, Lam and his screenwriter brother Nam Yin wanted to say things that concern everyone on earth, and maybe that's why so few seem to understand this film and others of its kind.

The film depicts school children a lot and the name involves word "school" which indicates to youngsters, but the message concerns human nature in general as children are of course blossoming and developing human beings who build their world view according to what they experience, what ideals and attitudes they see and in what kind of an environment they grow up and live. Cinema is a great tool for its artists to affect people's attitudes and try to change the world into better place, and films like SCHOOL ON FIRE really becomes even more important after thinking about that. That is also why the huge cuts demanded to this film before its release feel very wrong and unjustified.

The negative things in the film are about the screenplay which has some little irritating bits of dialogue by the characters as they scream little comically various things (like "I don't want to study!!" several times etc.) in their misery. The dialogue should have been little more restrained and carefully written, but fortunately these little flaws are not too plenty and don't affect too harmfully to the film as a whole. And as said, this film totally lacks any humor attempts and other things which usually make Hong Kong films look brainless and very trashy. There is no humor nor slapstick in SCHOOL ON FIRE. I don't think there are even too many smiles in the film neither!

This is among the true masterpieces of Ringo Lam and it is unbearably sad how much this film suffered before getting its release. Over 30 cuts were demanded and I think the removed footage doesn't even exits anymore (as is the case with Herman Yau's EBOLA SYNDROME), so it is likely we don't ever get to see the director's original vision and how outstanding that would have been. The current HK VCD release of SCHOOL ON FIRE has a very irritating "freeze frame cut" at the end which makes the cut(s) as noticeable as possible. The rest of the film doesn't suffer as much as it could in the worst case and fortunately there aren't other too visible cuts or jumps in the soundtrack, but a lot is still missing.

SCHOOL ON FIRE gets 8/10 from me and this is one of the most powerful and darkest films I've seen for some time. Ringo is a master.

I hadn't even heard about the 1988 movie "School On Fire" (aka "Hok hau fung wan") from director Ringo Lam before now in 2020, when I had the chance to sit down and watch the movie.

Needless to say that with my fascination and love for the Hong Kong cinema, of course I sat down to watch it. And it was a Ringo Lam movie after all.

However, "School On Fire" wasn't really the most entertaining of movies, nor was it the best from director Ringo Lam. There was just way too much going on throughout the course of the movie, and way too many characters that were tried to intermingle and connect throughout the various storylines. It just felt cluttered and sort of a bit too chaotic and random for me.

The acting in the movie was good, no doubt about that.

The movie just didn't really manage to capture my interest all that much, as it felt that I was left with way too many questions when the movie ended, and I also felt a bit overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the characters and various storylines.

As such, then my rating for "School On Fire" lands on a five out of ten stars. A mediocre movie when the dust settled. There are far better Hong Kong movies readily available and also from that late in the 1980s.

What's striking about this film is its vividness. It still looks fresh after 25 years since it was made.

For outsiders who've never lived in Hong Kong, it's not clear how much of the school system depicted in this movie is true, but it seems that shortage of good teachers are universal fact even in Hong Kong. Kids have to fend for themselves in a crappy system when they get into trouble.

The movie features the then emerging talent pool of young actors, and this is one of the best movie Fennie Yuen starred in. She carries the story convincingly, and keeps the quality of the movie high.

Late '80s was when the quality of Hong Kong cinema skyrocketed. Movies like this were the chief contributors. It's shot beautifully, and directed superbly. Story is also compelling in the way it's told.

This is one of the best movie to come out in the late '80s from Hong Kong, and is recommended for viewing.