Zhang Hanyu as Gao Gang, Captain of the narcotics task force. This still doesn’t even being to capture the violent energy of this movie. (WellGoUSA)

I can’t remember the last time I jumped so much at an action movie—and I was watching it on my phone. I highly recommend seeing Operation Mekong in a movie theater, but make sure you’re strapped in securely.

Lurid, out-of-focus scenes of a woman shooting up heroin set up a tale of the drug war. Operation Mekong is based on a 2011 incident known as the Mekong River Massacre, in which Chinese cargo ships smuggling 900,000 amphetamine pills were attacked near the Burmese and Thai borders. The movie plods along at first, introducing too many characters that speak too much exposition, though a swooping birds-eye camera tries to keep things at least visually appealing.

You may think you’re in for a snoozefest until the first shootout hits—and then you’re hooked. This is why you watch Hong Kong action movies: for vicious, elegantly choreographed, fearless car chases that never let you lose sight of the action and always leave you catching your breath.

The movie starts to go haywire, in a good way, after we meet the team who tries get to the bottom of the massacre. Captain Gao Gang (Zhang Hanyu) heads up a group of narcotics officers and intelligence agents, including master of disguise Fang (Taiwanese actor-singer Eddie Peng), people with mythological code names like Aphrodite and Hermes, and a heroic K-9 named Bingo, who I guarantee you will root for. The team’s assignment: to capture unhinged drug lord (is there any other kind?) Naw Khar (Pawarith Monkolpisit) and bring him in alive. Monkolpsit is a hammy, drugged out villain who basically just screams (if there was a Hong Kong equivalent of Nicolas Cage he would be so perfect for this role), but martial arts vet Ken Lo, who was once part of Jackie Chan’s stunt team, fares better as Mr. Jitpong, a cowboy hat-wearing dealer with ties to Fang’s past.

It’s a complicated set of characters to keep track of; thankfully, the action scenes make it easy to get invested, and incredibly, they keep getting better. Without spoiling particulars, let me describe one of the insane stunts: as a sports car comes racing after one of the narcotics officers, the officer, who’s out of ammo, reaches for a footstool, and charges into the speeding car’s windshield, aiming for the driver.

Director Dante Lam started his career in the late ’90s in the middle of the new wave of Hong Kong action movies. While he doesn’t maneuver the huge cast and operations of Mekong as well as Johnnie To did with his masterful 2012 thriller Drug War, this is still one hell of an action movie. And although some of it seems to be written by a panel, whoever thought it was a good idea to make the dog a minor star knew what they were doing. Go see it!

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Operation Mekong
Directed by Dante Lam
Written by Kang Ki Chu, Dante Lam, Siu Kwan Lau, Eric Lin, Wai Ching Tam
With Eddie Peng, Hanyu Zhang, Carl Ng, Ken Lo.
Not rated; it’s really, really, really violent.
Opens today at Regal Rockville