This film was not made in 1998-it was probably made in the late 70's or early 80's. It was released by everyone's favorite bargain basement martial arts video rip off artists "Arena Home Video". The copy I had included an "exclusive" John Woo interview that was cleary just taken off of TV. That interview, while providing no insights into Woo's work other than an early love of film, some creative use of a flashlight and glass slides, and his belonging to a high school newspaper's film club, is the best part of the tape. "Hong Kong Face-Off", whatever the real title is, might as well be called "Hong Kong Rip-Off". Any price higher than the 99 cents I paid for it out of a bargain bin would be too dear. The film is basically just a mish mash of kung fu and western cliches. The main character is sent from a police academy to clean up a small town ruled by a criminal who killed the cadet's father. He fights the criminal's men and falls in love with a blind girl. The blind girl's family is slaughtered in the course of the film, and our hero, eventually, defeats his enemies and promises to return to the town after he brings his criminal to jail. That's it. There's some truly awful comic relief, *very* uninspired direction (Woo, to his credit, does *try* some new techniques-unfortuantely, they all come off badly) but mostly there is some of the worst acting I have yet seen in a kung fu film. I mean, this film's acting and kung fu was so bad, it had me pining for the less straightforward and more amusing (in a so-bad-its-good way) "Sun Dragon" or "Soul Brothers of Kung Fu". The only redeeming thing about this garbage was that it gives us a chance to see John Woo, ever-so-fitfully developing his (overrated) style. The oh-so-honorable hero is there (Woo did not have the wisdom to inject any sort of ambiguity into his hero as he would do later, so the guy comes off as a cowboy mantinee idol), there's a disabled heroine, poorly developed romanctic sub plot, loyal and honorable but overpowered older sidekick (see the Killer for more of this). Whew. Avoid unless you simply *have* to see all of John Woo's films.
Review of Fist to Fist
