Two brothers on a Mission...
The Viral Factor is a 2012 action-drama film directed by Dante Lam, starring Jay Chou, Nicholas Tse and Andy On.
Man Jon (Jay), a recently-promoted IDC (International Defense Commission) operative had his world crashing down after a botched escort mission; a double-cross from his former superior, Sean Wong (Andy) leads to Man Jon's entire team killed, the scientist he's assigned to escort recaptured, and Man Jon shot in the temple, which he survived... until he was informed upon recovery after a three-month coma, that he have two weeks remaining in his lifespan.
Deciding to spend the rest of his days with his mother, Man Jon discovers from her that he has an estranged older brother somewhere in Kuala Lumpur, born as the result of an affair; Man Jon decides to travel to Malaysia and locate his sibling using an address provided by his mother, hoping to make amends with him, but as it turns out Man Jon's brother, Man Yeung (Nicholas) is a convicted fugitive wanted by the Malaysian authorities.
To make matters worse, Man Jon's traitorous ex-superior, Sean Wong, is in Malaysia as well. Man Jon eventually discovers the reason behind Sean's betrayal, and after a rough reunion with his brother, the Man siblings must work together to take down Sean.
The Viral Factor contains examples of:
- Armed with Pepper Spray: Man Yeung's intro sees him fleeing from Malaysian policemen, one who managed to subdue him momentarily with pepper spray. Man Yeung still managed to break free from his captors and make his way to a drinking fountain.
- Barefoot Captives: Man Yeung is shoeless when being led to his prison cell. He managed to escape, but remains barefoot while running everywhere around the premises of a police station.
- Big Bad: Sean Wong, who betrays his team right in the prologue to steal a sample of a lethal smallpox strain. He turns out to be in cahoots with Gunther Tyler, an international terrorist leader who serves as the virus' buyer.
- Bittersweet Ending: Man Jon gives up his life for his brother, Man Yeung, allowing Man Yeung to shoot Sean Wong and kill the villain. After Man Jon died from the bullet in his cranium, the film ends with Man Yeung visiting Beijing with his father and daughter to reunite with his mother.
- Contrived Coincidence: Man Jon's reunion with his estranged brother, Man Yeung, just happens to be in the same area of an entirely different country (Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) as where the traitor Sean Wong is about to rendezvous with his buyer, Tyler. Of course, this is so that the brothers can put their differences aside and take down a common enemy.
- Death by Cameo: Chinese A-Lister Michelle Bai plays Man Jon's fiancée who dies in the prologue.
- Destroy the Security Camera: A team of mercenaries infiltrates a hospital while disguised as doctors wearing face-masks to gain access to the biotech division, kills the guards, and shoots out the cameras for good measure. Which is depicted as screens on the surveillance panels fizzing out, one at a time.
- Dirty Cop: Russell, a Malaysian-Chinese police sergeant who turns out to be on Sean's payroll.
- Downer Beginning: The film begins with Man Jon's botched escort mission, where one of his squad-mates betrays him and leads Jon's entire team to a terrorist ambush. The mission is a failure with almost everyone dying, Jon witnessing his fiancée / comrade-in-arms shot by the traitor, and himself getting a bullet in the noggin' which sees him with two weeks remaining.
- Flare Gun: Man Yeung fires a two-bore flare rifle at the Malaysian police who's escorting Rachel through a warehouse, creating a smokescreen large enough for him to grab Rachel and flee in the confusion.
- The Hero Dies: It's a Foregone Conclusion right at the movie's start when Man Jon is declared to have two weeks remaining, but the film ends with him eventually succumbing to being shot by Sean, combined with the bullet in his cranium.
- Hollywood Silencer: One of the film's action scenes is set inside a hospital at night, where hitmen disguised as doctors goes around shooting security guards with silencer-equipped pistols. With gunshots soft enough to barely make a sound or wake anybody in the wards.
- I Have Your Wife: Or I Have Your Mom and Daughter, subjected on two different characters. Sean Wong the Big Bad forces civilian virologist Rachel into developing a Synthetic Plague for him by capturing Rachel's mother, and when Man Yeung managed to escape with Rachel, Sean kidnaps Man Yeung's little daughter and demands for Man Yeung to deliver a sample of the antidote to him.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Played straight with Man Yeung's little daughter, who despite being infected by a prototype strain fo smallpox, shoved into an airtight body-bag and thrown into the ocean, survives the movie. Her father managed to drag her up just in time.
- Kidnapped Scientist: Kenner Osama, a Norwegian scientist whose family was abducted by insurgents to create a new strain of smallpox, which Man Jon and his team was assigned to extract in the prologue. Rachel herself becomes one after Kenner's death, when Sean discovers her affiliation with the ACDC and abducts Rachel's mother to force her co-operation.
- Leave No Witnesses: At one point, a civilian woman and her child accidentally runs over Kenner Osama, who just escaped from Sean, before Sean and his mooks caught up. Sean then motions for a mook to shoot the civilian woman and child for "knowing too much".
- Long-Lost Relative: What kicks off the film's plot - Man Jon realize he has an estranged older brother in Malaysia, and decides to travel overseas to find him.
- Look Both Ways: How Kenner Osama dies - fleeing from Sean's men, Kenner runs into a dirt road without looking and was run over by a truck. The truck's driver - a woman with a child - stops, just as Sean and a few mooks arrive, and Sean immediately motions a mook to shoot both the woman and child.
- Momma's Boy: Man Jon, realizing he doesn't have long to live, decides to spend the two weeks with the last person he cares about the most, his mother who still lives in the city's outskirts, but it was there Jon finds out from his mother that he have an illegitimate half-brother living somewhere in Malaysia, at which point Jon then decides to use the two weeks he still have to locate and reconcile with his brother, what his mother really wanted.
- One-Hit Polykill: One that nearly happens in the prologue, when Sean Wong reveals his true nature as a traitor and fires a single shot at Man Jon and his fiancée, Ice. The bullet goes through Ice's forehead and kills her before hitting Man Jon in the face, but the momentum slows the bullet enough to leave Man Jon alive.
- Papa Wolf: Man Yeung may not be a good father, but he still goes out fighting when his daughter is in danger.
- Prosthetic Limb Reveal: As the Man siblings gets into a fight, which their father tries to interrupt, they end up hitting their elderly father by accident, tripping him over and revealing - to the audience, but also to Man Jon who never saw dad since he's a child - that the father's left leg is a detachable prosthetic appendage.
- Raised by Grandparents: Owing to Man Yeung being a wanted criminal who spends most of his days on the run from authorities, his little daughter is raised mostly by the grandpa. She's an Adorably Precocious Child as a result.
- Ring on a Necklace: After Man Jon lose his fiancée courtesy of Sean's betrayal, subsequent scenes sees Man Jon wearing his engagement ring on a cord around his neck.
- Shout-Out: An action movie set in Kuala Lumpur, with a helicopter chase and a lengthy action scene inside a train? Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh would be proud.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Man Jon is single, a highly-decorated IDC operative and maintains a stable relationship with his mothrr; Man Yeung is a Struggling Single Father, a wanted criminal who committed robberies, a frequent prison escapee, and his constant brushes with the law have badly fractured his relationship with his dad.
- Synthetic Plague: The kind of virus Kenner Osama is developing, and is being smuggled into Malaysia to be mutated into a bio-weapon and be spread worldwide.
- 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: Subverted; Man Jon gets a bullet in his temple after the opening shootout, which doesn't kill him... until two weeks later.
- Western Terrorists: The international criminal organization Sean Wong was working for falls under these, with their leader, Tyler, waiting to rendezvous with Sean in Kuala Lumpur. Some of the mooks in the final shootout are noticeably Caucasian.
- Would Hurt a Child: In an attempt to force Man Yeung into handing over the smallpox antidote, Sean deliberately infects Man Yeung's little daughter with a strain of the virus. There's also an early scene when Sean had a mook shoot a woman and child for trespassing.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Jon has two weeks remaining after the prologue, and decides to spend his limited time alive to track down his estranged brother.
