Out of Inferno - Blu-ray

Film: As a team in the fire department, brothers Dajun (Sean Lau) and Qiang (Louis Koo) were an unbeatable team. But then four years ago, Qiang decided to quit his job and start his own fire protection company. This decision caused a rift between the brothers that seems to be final. But then fate brings the two back together in a particularly cruel way: In the high-rise building, of all places, for which Qiang has developed a state-of-the-art fire protection system, a fire breaks out shortly before it goes into operation and spreads at breakneck speed. Not only Qiang, but also Dajun's pregnant wife Sile (Sinje Lee), who was in the building for a check-up, are now trapped by the flames. Now the brothers must put aside their differences to save themselves and many other people from certain death by fire.

Out of Inferno is a very classic disaster movie. If you have ever seen a representative of this genre, you will be able to predict the entire plot very quickly. The characters are drawn very template-like and also their conflicts are one big cliché. Visually as well as dramaturgically you often feel reminded of Flaming Inferno and Backdraft and also the South Korean blockbuster The Tower obviously left its mark on the script. But even though there is hardly any originality and a certain lack of surprise hovers over the whole thing, on balance the film works quite well.

This is largely because the desperate search for a way out of the flaming hell has been executed in a fairly exciting and fast-paced manner. The effects are sometimes spectacular, only in a few scenes you can see too clearly that they were created on a computer. There is one scene in particular where slow-motion has been used very cleverly, making it look truly spectacular. Moments like this then allow the numerous clichés to melt into insignificant lumps that viewers can happily overlook.

Of course, the ending is extremely cheesy and completely bereft of any ideas of its own. And the attempt at a tiny bit of social criticism of the displacement of small farmers by steady urbanization can't really take hold and seems rather a bit out of place. All in all, the justified points of criticism might be in the majority. But if you like disaster movies, you will gladly accept the known clichés and will still be entertained very well. So if you don't expect all the characters to behave rationally or to be presented with surprising plot twists, you won't get your fingers burned by this movie. And then also undoubtedly applies: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: Technically, the Blu-ray delivers exactly the good standard that can be expected from a current studio production. The picture is absolutely clean, the coherent coloration and overall sharpness are convincing and there is hardly any reason to complain about the matching of contrasts and black levels. The very special atmosphere of the burning skyscraper comes off very well. The audio, which is in a fairly lively DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, conveys the dialogue and soundscape of the fire coherently from the speakers and also has a few good surround moments to offer. Good.

Extras: As a bonus, the disc has a decent making of, which goes into detail about the production in a slightly too short 16 minutes. It reveals some rather interesting aspects that make this short documentary well worth watching for fans of disaster films.

Conclusion: Out of Inferno is a very traditional disaster film, strongly reminiscent in places of US classics such as Flaming Inferno and Backdraft. There are the usual genre stereotypes and conflict situations that must be dealt with in the face of an enormous disaster. There are no big surprises. Nevertheless, the whole thing is very entertaining over long stretches for lovers of the subject. Even if not all effects can convince, the film offers enough spectacle for an entertaining home theater evening. The Blu-ray presents the fight against the fire in good picture and sound quality and also has a short but informative making of on board. For this there is then also a satisfied: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp