All posts tagged billy chow

GOLDEN JOB (2018) review

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After a cameo in Da Peng’s Jianbing Man (2015) and a successful concert tour seemed to indicate the audience was ready for more of the Young and Dangerous quartet of Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Jerry Lamb, Michael Tse, here they are reunited for a whole film, for the first time in 20 years, since 1998’s Young and Dangerous 5. Their co-star in the latter film, Chin Ka Lok, here directs, choreographs the action and co-stars again. While Jason Chu, an original member of the Young and Dangerous gang, is nowhere to be seen, he will indeed star with Jordan Chan, Jerry Lamb and Michael Tse – but without Ekin Cheng – in Wilson Chin action thriller The Lonely War, while Ekin Cheng, Michael Tse and Jerry Lamb will appear together – without Jordan Chan and Jason Chu – in Lv Kejing’s fantasy thriller Love Illusion in late 2018. Do keep up, our point is that Golden Job is a rare alignment of stars.

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by LP Hugo on September 16, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on September 16, 2018

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2018/09/16/golden-job-2018-review/

YES MADAM 5 (1996) short review

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With its title, Lau Shing’s Yes Madam 5 positions itself clumsily as part of a kind of franchise whose first two intallments are also (and mostly) known as In the Line of Duty 2 and 3 (in 1985 and 1987 respectively). Then comes Yes Madam 92: A Serious Shock in 1992, then a Taiwanese Yes Madam in 1995, which brings us one year later to Yes Madam 5. One has to wonder if making this the fifth film in such a vaguely delineated franchise was such a clever move. Of course it doesn’t really matter, as the only connection between most of these films is Cynthia Khan playing a cop (which she did in 90% of her filmography anyway). By 1996 the Girls With Guns genre was quickly dying away, as was Khan’s career : and indeed Yes Madam 5 is a sad sight. Barely sustained by a plot too mundane to dignify with a summary and constantly mired in a horribly dated synth score, it wastes most of its runtime on numbingly procedural scenes and a patience-trying love triangle, all the while botching its few action scenes with shoddy editing that constantly re-uses the same shots of kicks and punches to artificially draw out the fights. The always watchable Cynthia Khan, along with familiar faces like Chin Siu Ho, Philip Ko (who also directs the action), Billy Chow or the steely Sharon Yeung (a wasted talent if there ever was one), help make the whole thing look professional, but in the end the 85 minutes are a chore to get through. *

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by LP Hugo on August 31, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on August 31, 2015

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/08/31/yes-madam-5-1996-short-review/

THE GAMBLING GHOST (1991) review

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Mixing the ‘ghost comedy’ genre with which Sammo Hung had been quite successful in the eighties, with the gambling craze initiated by Wong Jing’s God of Gamblers in 1989, Clifton Ko’s The Gambling Ghost follows Fat Bo (Sammo Hung), a lowly valet who squanders what money he earns on misguided and startlingly unlucky gambling, much to the chagrin of his dour father (Sammo Hung again), whose own father (Sammo Hung, yet again) was a gambler himself and was killed by a mob boss. One day, the ghost of the grandfather appears and strikes a deal with his grandson : he’ll make him rich by helping him cheat at gambling and by using his ghostly powers to make him win the lottery, but in return Fat Bo must get revenge for him. The Gambling Ghost follows a familiar Hong Kong comedy pattern : a drawn-out, episodic start, which suddenly accelerates to an action-packed finale in the last third (here finely choreographed by Meng Hoi, who also plays Fat Bo’s gambling partner). And indeed, the idea of a ghost forcing a man into getting him revenge or closure is one that Sammo had already used in 1982’s The Dead and the Deadly and 1986’s Where’s Officer Tuba, and that he would again play out in 1992’s Ghost Punting.

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by LP Hugo on April 14, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on April 14, 2015

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/04/14/the-gambling-ghost-1991-review/

TOUGH BEAUTY AND THE SLOPPY SLOP (1995) short review

5132J64CRFL._SS500_ With its pairing of a stern Mainland police woman and an affable Hong Kong cop, who stage a prison break to infiltrate a drug trafficker’s gang, Yuen Bun’s Tough Beauty and the Sloppy Slop (its original title refers to a kind of speedboat) is a not-too-subtle rehash of Police Story 3, with cheaper alternatives to Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh in the lead roles. In step Yuen Biao, a hugely underrated actor who was at the nadir of his career at the time, and Cynthia Khan, who had already stood in for Yeoh in the In The Line Of Duty series, and whose career was waning quickly by 1994. Indeed this is a cheap film, and while it flashes a lot of familiar, welcome faces besides its leads (Waise Lee, Yuen Wah, Alan Chui who directed the action, and Billy Chow all appear), it is so derivative, loosely narrated and – more damningly for this kind of production – light on action, that it’s hard not to be sorry for Yuen and Khan, who turn in game performances despite having little chemistry together, but deserved so much better. Their short final fight against Billy Chow (scored with Elliot Goldenthal’s Demolition Man score) is the only worthwhile scene in an otherwise flabby little actioner. *

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by LP Hugo on February 21, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on February 21, 2015

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/02/21/tough-beauty-and-the-sloppy-slop-1994-short-review/

ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA 4 (1993) short review

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In 1993, Wu Shu champion Vincent Zhao had the uneasy task of replacing Jet Li as the iconic Wong Fei Hung in a fourth installment of Tsui Hark’s Once Upon A Time In China series, following a highly successful trilogy of films. Once Upon A Time In China IV (henceforth Ouatic IV) is not actually directed by Tsui Hark, but by Yuen Bun, who had choreographed the action in the third film. The film is on a smaller scale, and its story, while still musing on themes of national pride and foreign influence, is both more anecdotal and a rehash of the second film’s plot (with the ‘Red Lantern’ sect replacing the ‘White Lotus’ sect). Zhao is an adequate replacement : he’s not as charismatic as Jet Li, but his martial arts ability and grace doesn’t suffer by comparison. The problem is that the film features drawn-out scenes of lion-dancing, a venerable tradition that must be stunning in real life, but tends to bore this writer on screen, and despite the stunning design of some of those parade ornaments, is a weak substitute for actual fight scenes, which are too scarce here. Elsewhere, Jean Wang provides a fine replacement for Rosamund Kwan’s absent Aunt Yee, and Xiong Xin Xin is close to stealing the film away from Zhao with his humorous performance (complemented of course by his awe-inspiring kicks). But like the former film, Ouatic IV lacks a proper villain, with Chin Kar-Lok and Billy Chow forming a striking but grossly underused duo of baddies. An entertaining but forgettable installment. **1/2

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by LP Hugo on July 23, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on July 23, 2014

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2014/07/23/once-upon-a-time-in-china-iv-1993-short-review/

IN THE LINE OF DUTY 5 : MIDDLE MAN (1990) review

Some say the In The Line Of Duty franchise started its decline with this fifth installment, directed by Cha Chuen Yee in 1990, a time when the Girls With Guns genre was starting to recede to alternative Asian film industries like Taiwan or the Philippines. It’s true that while it has been the common lot of the films of this franchise to have mostly disposable plots, the story in In The Line Of Duty 5 is particularly uninspiring and trite. It involves things such as the CIA, a marine on leave and drug dealers, all intertwined in the least interesting ways possible. At the center of these wholly uninteresting goings-on is, again, the endearing Cynthia Khan, who it must be said got more and more credible as an ass-kicker with each installment.

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by LP Hugo on May 14, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by LP Hugo on May 14, 2012

https://asianfilmstrike.com/2012/05/14/in-the-line-of-duty-5-middle-man-1990-review/