SEA WOLVES (aka IN THE LINE OF DUTY 7) (1991) short review

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Sometimes marketed as the 7th installment in the In The Line Of Duty franchise (and indeed, 90% of Cynthia Khan’s filmography could be from that franchise), Sea Wolves actually puts an emphasis on Gary Chau (a D&B Films protégé whose career never took off) and Simon Yam, as two Vietnamese friends separated by fate after emigrating to Hong Kong: Yam joins a gang of modern-day pirates who prey on Vietnamese boat people (how is that a logical step for a Vietnamese immigrant?), while Chau loses his sister in a pirate raid by that very same gang, subsequently finding himself stranded in Hong Kong, deprived of his memory by a nasty fall on his head. Cynthia Khan comes into play as a tough female cop on the trail of the pirate gang, and Norman Tsui adds another fine bad guy to his scintillating repertoire of villainy. For one hour the film noodles around pleasantly but unfortunately not thrillingly, with some tame comedy and slightly overwrought drama, but also thankfully the welcome grit and efficiency that can be expected from those late eighties, early nineties action films churned out by the D&B film company. Ultimately though, only the ever-reliable Simon Yam, the beautiful Cynthia Khan and a brutal, thrilling final action scene on a boat elevate Sea Wolves slightly above mediocrity. **1/2

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by LP Hugo on October 22, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on October 22, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/10/22/sea-wolves-aka-in-the-line-of-duty-7-1991-short-review/

BADGES OF FURY (2013) review

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With Jackie Chan celebrating his filmography’s milestones by adding new installments to his most successful franchises, and Donnie Yen getting busier than ever on a variety of action-heavy projects, it’s puzzling to see the wildly different turn Jet Li’s career has taken. Choosing, admirably, to focus on his charity (The One Foundation) and his Tai Chi promotion (Taiji Zen), he has been content for a few years now to appear as a benevolent supporting actor (though always top billed) in films that woefully underuse him both as an actor and as a martial artist. Badges of Fury unfortunately continues that disappointing trend. The real lead here is Wen Zhang, as a cocky young cop who, paired with veteran Jet Li and under the supervision of superior officer Michelle Chen, investigates on a series of murders in which the victims all die with a smile on their face. They cross paths with a stuttering insurance agent (Wu Jing), a whimiscal mob boss (Leung Kar Yan), a Men In Black type supercop (Huang Xiaoming), and many other cameoing stars, but the murders all trace back to an actress who has dated all of the victims (Liu Yan), and her sister (Cecilia Liu) who has made a habit out of stealing her boyfriends.

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by LP Hugo on October 22, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on October 22, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/10/22/badges-of-fury-2013-review/

WONDER SEVEN (1994) review

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A gang of seven martial artists/bikers (whose more recognizable members are Kent Cheng and Xiong Xin Xin) working for the law who butt heads with a rogue agent working for an international crime organization. That’s about all I remember of the plot, and I saw the film last week. What I do remember : when this film was made, in 1994, director/choreographer Ching Siu-Tung’s action style was being overused in Hong Kong cinema, and overextended by its instigator ; Wonder Seven is a prime example of that. Never mind the lack of a discernible dramatic structure (outside of the fact it all ends in climactic overkill), the non-existent characterization that means that the titular “Wonder Seven” are even less subtly delineated than the Seven Dwarves, or even the puzzling attempts at humor : while these faults aren’t a fixture of Hong Kong cinema, they are at least recurring defects in the more commercial section of that industry, that can often be ignored through sheer sensory elation. But here Ching’s style has reached a point where it was not only feeling very redundant at the time, but still today out of the context of its release looks and feels tired and over-indulgent.

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by LP Hugo on August 8, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on August 8, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/08/08/wonder-seven-1994-review/

KUNG FU WING CHUN (2010) short review

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Unfortunately more notable for the tragic death of its star Bai Jing than for anything to be found in it, this martial arts comedy by Tung Cho Joe Cheung features more inane comedy than interesting fighting, a shame given its title. Just like Yuen Woo-Ping’s 1994 film Wing Chun (starring the soon-to-be-reunited triumvirate of Yuen, Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen), it plays fast and loose with the already fast and loose origins of Wing Chun kung fu, a fighting style recently kicked into a full-blown trend by Yen’s Ip Man films. The historically baseless story of Wing Chun is that it was taught by buddhist nun Ng Mui to a young girl called Wing Chun, whose only way out of a loveless wedding to a rich kid was defeating him in a fight. Kung Fu Wing Chun more or less sticks to the legend, coating it in some uninspired comedy and akwardly choreographed fights, all very fake looking due to a stuffy studio aesthetic and cheap-looking green-screen work. The late Bai Jing is endearing but no Michelle Yeoh, being a bit short in the charisma department and quite often obviously doubled. Brief relief from mediocrity comes in the form of some illustrious supporting actors, among which Kara Hui as Ng Mui, Collin Chou as the villain of the piece, and the Yuen Wah/Yuen Qiu couple from Kung Fu Hustle. *1/2

 

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by LP Hugo on July 3, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on July 3, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/07/03/kung-fu-wing-chun-2010-short-review/

TAI CHI II (1996) review

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Billed as a sequel of sorts to the great Tai Chi Master, Tai Chi II is actually not only narratively unrelated to the illustrious Jet Li/Michelle Yeoh pair-up (also directed by Yuen Woo-Ping), but also spiritually disconnected from it : there’s not much Tai Chi in it. It tells of Jackie, a young Tai Chi disciple (ok, that’s the main Tai Chi connection) who spends his time pissing off his parents (a likeable pairing of Yu Hai and Sibelle Hu in her last film role), a beautiful girl’s (gorgeous Christy Chung) current boyfriend (Mark Cheng), and more dangerously, a gang of opium smugglers led by an angry Gweilo (Darren Shahlavi) who spouts such penetratingly written lines as “Damn you devil Chinaman”. It is notable for being Yuen Woo-Ping last feature film as a director before a 14-year hiatus that ended with 2010’s True Legend. But it is also the feature film debut of Jacky Wu Jing, a national Wushu champion who once seemed destined to be the next Jet Li, but through some bad career management has for now ended up a very reliable and likeable martial arts supporting actor instead (he was recently superb in Benny Chan’s Shaolin).

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by LP Hugo on June 29, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on June 29, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/06/29/tai-chi-ii-1996-review/

COP ON A MISSION (2001) review

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A year before Infernal Affairs rejuvenated Hong Kong cinema, Eric Tsang was already playing an affable yet brutal mob boss in an ‘undercover cop drama’, Cop on a Mission, which didn’t get much attention but deserved its fair share of it. It tells of Mike (Daniel Wu), a driven cop who is assigned to an undercover mission in triad boss Yum’s (Eric Tsang) circle. But he is soon seduced not only by the glitzy world he has infiltrated, but also by Yum’s beautiful wife Pauline (Suki Kwan). As he grows more and more estranged from his real life, including his kind girlfriend (Anya), and is given more and more power by the trusting Yum, Mike’s moral compass threatens to go awol. It’s not difficult to see why such a film would get overshadowed and somewhat forgotten in the wake of the Infernal Affairs trilogy’s enormous success. Cop on a Mission has an altogether much less polished package, though it is directed with maximum efficiency by hard-working editor Marco Mak (who edited virtually every Hong Kong classic of the nineties) ; the cast is less glamorous (Wu and Tsang being the only big names), and the script is less tortuous. But contrary to many of its kind, Marco Mak’s film doesn’t desperately try to be mind-blowing, it shoots for “fun and engrossing” and hits its target.

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by LP Hugo on January 7, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on January 7, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/01/07/cop-on-a-mission-2001-review/

MADAM CITY HUNTER (1993) short review

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Bearing not even the faintest connection to the famous City Hunter character which received its Jackie Chan-starring film adaptation the same year, Madam City Hunter is a bafflingly-scripted action comedy in which a tough police officer (Cynthia Khan) is framed for murder and takes advantage of her suspension to investigate on her shady young stepmother (Kara Hui), who may be a venomous gold-digger with ties to the mob. She is helped by her love-struck commissioner (Tommy Wong Kwong-Leung) and a private investigator (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) and his hyperactive girlfriend (Sheila Chan). It’s a film that noisily goes nowhere, a string of lazy gags peppered with bouts of fairly inspired action (Yuen Woo Ping produces and had a hand in the fights). The trite comedy balances between playing ground-level hijinks and viagra jokes. Still, outside of the scant fight scenes, the film’s one redeeming aspect is its cast: Cynthia Khan may not be quite at home in that kind of comedy, but Anthony Wong Chau-Sang is always eminently watchable, Kara Hui ramps up the sexy and has a lot of fun, and Tommy Wong Kwong-Leung is enjoyably cast against type as Khan’s swooning, well-meaning superior officer. A fun film, in an obnoxious way. **

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by LP Hugo on January 7, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on January 7, 2013

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2013/01/07/madam-city-hunter-1993-short-review/

BUTTERFLY LOVERS (2008) short review

This featherweight retelling of a classic, Romeo and Juliet-like legend (already filmed in Tsui Hark’s The Lovers) is directed by the master of glitz, Jingle Ma, with a sure commercial hand but little in the way of a vision or even basic originality. Wu Chun and Charlene Choi are star-crossed lovers while Hu Ge is the bitter third wheel whose scheming precipitates a strikingly artificial tragic end. Charlene Choi is exceedingly cute, and estimable people like Ti Lung, Xiong Xin Xin or Fan Siu-Wong add a dash of gravitas and martial arts in supporting roles, but Butterfly Lovers remains as bland as its male lead, charisma-challenged Wu Chun. Falsely advertised under the title Assassin’s Blade and with an action-packed cover in some places, it is a corny affair that only really succeeds as eye-candy (and ear-candy, thanks to Chiu Tsang Hei’s score). **

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by LP Hugo on October 16, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on October 16, 2012

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2012/10/16/butterfly-lovers-2008-short-review/

TOUCH AND GO (aka POINT OF NO RETURN) (1991) review

What could a collaboration between Sammo Hung Kam-Bo and Ringo Lam in the early nineties look like, since the former was at the time known more for his hard-hitting but breezy comedies, and the latter already celebrated for his brutal and pessimistic style and outlook (having already directed such classics as City on Fire and Prison on Fire). In a way, this is a similar kind of pairing as when two years later the realistically-inclined Kirk Wong paired up with the perennially sunny (at least at the time) Jackie Chan for Crime Story. But Touch and Go didn’t fare quite as well as Crime Story would, artistically or financially. It tells of Goose (Sammo Hung Kam-Bo), a cook who witnesses the murder of a cop by a gang of sex traffickers headed by Tiger (Tommy Wong Kwong-Leung) with ties and “customers” high up even in the Hong Kong police. Goose agrees to testify against Tiger, but the latter is bailed out and proceeds to burn his restaurant down to scare him away from testifying. A terrified Goose finds help with Pitt (Yeung Ming Wan), the murdered cop’s partner, as well as his sister Angel (Teresa Mo) and a kind-hearted Mainlander May (Irene Wan) who was lured to Hong Kong only to be exploited by Tiger, who actually may have feelings for her…

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by LP Hugo on October 5, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on October 5, 2012

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2012/10/05/touch-and-go-aka-the-point-of-no-return-1991-review/

CHINA STRIKE FORCE (2000) short review

With a cast that is kind of interesting in its own warped way (Hong Kong heartthrob Aaron Kwok, American-born Taiwanese singer Wang Leehom, Miss Japan 1992 Norika Fujiwara, underrated Hawaiian cypher Mark Dacascos and American rapper/awful actor Coolio, no less), and an experienced action director at the helm (Jackie Chan’s main yes man Stanley Tong), China Strike Force is, at least, entertaining. The forgettable and trite plot involves two Chinese agents (Kwok and Wang) tracking drug smugglers (Dacascos and Coolio), and the possible double-agent (Fujiwara) stuck in between. Coolio is punishingly bad and drags the whole thing down, but most of the action scenes are impressive, especially the vertigo-inducing final fight on a pane of glass dangling from the top of a skyscraper. Stanley Tong proves yet again that he’s one of the best action directors around, and Ailen Sit’s choreography is superbly fluid and weirdly balletic. By now, you’ve guessed that China Strike Force only has its action going for it. **

 

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by LP Hugo on September 24, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on September 24, 2012

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2012/09/24/china-strike-force-2000-short-review/

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