In the interest of honesty, I will be straight with you all: I saw this film solely because Herman Yau is the director, and I wanted the ability to say that I saw a Herman Yau film in a theatre. This was probably a mistake, albeit one that I’m not entirely certain was grave. Perhaps it was just minimal.

The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell is bad. That must be stated upfront. In just about every single aspect (save one critical one), the film fails. Mere seconds into the film, we’re deposited into a nonsensical action sequence where, due to Yau’s unfathomable lack of blocking. Not a second makes sense. The sound design aims for effect by volume and the results are bludgeoning. I haven’t provided a plot summary, because I’m not all that certain it matters much? As is, the film so bluntly provides the backstories of two undercover Hong Kong narcotics detectives (Aaron Kwok and Louis Koo). It robs the texts of any possible nuance or drama. There’s a romantic subplot centred around opium farming that might be the definition of cloying. Without spoiling things, the final thirty seconds of this film are such a non sequitur it’s baffling.

Yet the film succeeds in one critical regard: it does what it sets out to do. Here’s the dilemma of The White Storm 3: the film is poor, but it does successfully achieve all of its aims. Yau wants to build something that is loud, dumb and (debatably) a good time. The eardrum shattering cacophony, the eye-rolling melodrama, the all-encompassing over-the-top ridiculousness, it’s all in service of a good time. To be clear, my audience spent most of the film laughing, but it’s difficult for me to tell if the they were laughing with the film or at it.