Bonkers. There is no other word that describes the lunatic wonders that are the latest from directors George Miller, 70, and Tsui Hark, 65, still displaying a pre-CGI eye for creative energy, filmmakers half their ages could only hope for. When they're comfortable enough to really let loose - and they definitely are here - the result is two unapologetic hours of frantic car chases and crazed combat. You'll love it or you'll hate it.

Mad Max: Fury Road sees Miller abandoning his pigs (Babe: Pig in the City) and penguins (Happy Feet) for the ruin and wreckage of his origins - with a subversive feminist twist - that is catholic in its mayhem. No crash is too explosive, no engine revs too loudly. If you thought Age of Ultron was too slow and Furious Seven was too complex, Fury Road is for you. In The Taking of Tiger Mountain, the legendary Tsui does what he does best, and embraces a torrent of lunacy that defies description. Mountain is the kind of movie that you give up on: on making narrative sense, on separating combatants, on logic. The thing is, about 40 minutes in a kind of acceptance settles over you that allows for unfettered enjoyment.

The two films share a kind of lone wolf classicism of the solitary hero, if you can call him that, reluctantly helping a settlement or group of weary travelers confront injustice. Tiger Mountain was partially financed by August First, the Chinese military's movie-making unit, and so it has a Top Gun feel: it's a recruitment ad for the PLA. Its hero is less reluctant than Fury Road's, but he does take up his mission because there is no other choice.

Fury Road picks up with "Mad" Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy, strong in the role made iconic by Mel Gibson), still surviving the apocalypse, now played by the rolling dunes of Namibia rather than the dusty desolation of the Australian Outback. After escaping a fiery crash in a sandstorm (the film's standout sequence), Max falls into an uneasy partnership with the ridiculously named Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who's smuggling five young brides away from the slavery of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, from the original Mad Max) in her war rig. Joe rules a colony of desperate survivors and brainwashed "war boys", maintaining control with promises of fresh water and Valhalla. Furiosa herself may have been enslaved once, and she's not having it anymore.

Mountain's story revolves around a cat and mouse game between a soldier and a group of bandits in the late 1940s. A mysterious spy, Yang Zirong (always welcome Zhang Hanyu, Assembly), volunteers to help a battalion of soldiers and villagers trapped in the mountains rid themselves of the local warlord, Hawk (Tony Leung Ka-fai, barely recognizable) who's sitting on a weapons cache. Yang infiltrates Hawk's gang and dismantles it from within, outwitting Hawk and his minions at every turn, always ready with a story for his odd behavior. Mountain is one action-packed set piece after another, as Yang tried to relay messages and make plans with the PLA while remaining undercover. The pice de rsistance here is the final bomber plane showdown that must be seen to be believed.

Neither film is particularly interested in messaging, though Fury Road is notable in that it's as much Theron's film as it is Hardy's, title notwithstanding. It's the more fantastical of the two - characters have names like Valkyrie and Rictus Erectus - and it's blessed with a spectacular visual aesthetic courtesy of cinematographer John Seale that gives it an identity (Road Warrior fans will be pleased). Mountain is nearly undone by modern bookend devices that are embarrassing and distracting but it wins points for having slightly more narrative. Ultimately these are masters of the form at the top of their game showing the kids how it's done. If we're lucky, one will be available for the next Fast & Furious. And I hear Marvel's hiring.

(HK Edition 05/15/2015 page8)