Zhao is an explosives expert. Following an explosion at a mine that leaves four dead, Zhao is fired and threatened by mine owner Li Yi. Zhao nevertheless returns to the mine to investigate, and it soon becomes clear the explosion was no accident, and he did not make a mistake.

Li Yi is then blackmailed by Cheng Fei, whose son is in a coma, and it appears Cheng Fei is out for revenge. When people start dying, Zhao becomes a suspect. Now, Zhao finds himself on the run from the thugs out to kill him and the police, and it becomes a cat and mouse game for Zhao to stay ahead of the pack.

The film has a good premise and could have been so much better. I believe the director is to blame. The performances from most of the cast lacked enthusiasm and better editing could also have resulted in a faster paced, more exciting movie.

There are a few very good action sequences, but this didn't entirely compensate where the film lacked. Towards the end it became generic and predictable. 'Explosion' had the potential to be a true nail-biter, but it somehow missed its mark. It also wasn't believable that the characters couldn't kill their enemies despite perfect opportunity.

Regardless, 'Explosion' was nevertheless still an entertaining movie that kept me interested throughout.

Well, the synopsis for the 2017 Chinese action thriller "Yin Bao Zhe" (aka "Explosion") definitely sounded interesting enough. And I opted to watch what writers Zheng Chang and Meng Li had to offer with this movie, without ever having heard about it.

And while the synopsis did sound interesting, the reality was something else, because "Yin Bao Zhe" was a swing and a miss. The narrative of the storyline is so dull and slow paced that it is difficult to remain awake and alert throughout the 106 minutes that the movie ran for, even with all the explosions going on.

The storyline was just not in my liking. Sure, there were parts here and there that were good and entertaining enough, but the overall picture was just a subpar movie experience. It was too slow paced and almost didn't even make it from A to B in the narrative. And it didn't help much that the character gallery in the movie was so mundane that you just simply don't care an ounce about any of the characters.

I feel like director Zheng Chang wasted a somewhat good potential here, because "Yin Bao Zhe" definitely could have been set up for a lot more than what it managed to deliver.

If you enjoy Asian action thrillers, then I wouldn't recommend that you waste your time, money or effort on "Yin Bao Zhe". It just simply is too mundane and slow paced. And for an action thriller, it was terribly devoid of thrills.

My rating of "Yin Bao Zhe" lands on a three out of ten stars.