HK police thrillers keep audiences on edge of their seats

Wong believes the police thriller will make its next breakthrough in its perception of humanity.

"There is nothing more powerful than mining the treasures of humanity through one's struggle with the outside world," Wong added.

Danny Lee, who is among Hong Kong's earliest crime film directors and actors, said there is now a chance for police thrillers to focus more on storytelling and character, rather than action.

This shift would mark a return to the starting point, instead of being a new approach, Lee said. Crime films in the 1960s and '70s tended to focus on community offenses, involving police who were poorly educated and criminals living in violent neighborhoods.

"What matters in such stories is what the police were thinking, what the villains were thinking," he said.

Lee's award-winning film Law with Two Phases (1984) offered a fresh, real-life approach to creating Hong Kong cop dramas. He plays a dedicated officer who accidentally kills a young boy in a gunfight with a seasoned bank robber－experiencing unjust treatment until he apprehends the criminal to clear his name.

New filmmakers should keep their feet on the ground, start with simple stories, and tell them well, said Lee, adding that before making big-budget commercial films such as Raging Fire, Benny Chan won the trust of audiences and investors with his hard work and talent.