Here's how the ultimate confrontation between the villain (Ren) and the hero (Lai) begins. The setting is a large garage filled with containers of gasoline and boxes of equipment. A half-disassembled car hangs from the ceiling. There has just been a grand shoot out and the floor is littered with bodies. Okay? Now, the villain is splashing gallons of gasoline around the place, preparatory to burning the building down and destroying all the evidence of his complicity. He drops a lighter into the gasoline and the flames leap up all over.
But -- get this -- a whimper comes from a darkened corner and, lo, it is the very pregnant wife of a man for whose death Ren was responsible. She's gagged and wrapped in a sack and she's in labor. Delivery is imminent. Ren rushes to her and hurriedly begins unwrapping her.
But the garage door bursts open and Lai enters, hoping to catch the perps. Ren interrupts the unwrapping and he and Lai exchange shots, and then engage in an epic fist fight with no fancy chop-socky movies, just punches and thrown objects. Meanwhile the fire burns and the pregnant woman bubbles -- mmmph, mmph! A hanging car is dislodged during the fight and it falls on the bad guy's leg, shredding it and partly trapping him. This frees Lai to run to the woman, unwrap her completely, remove her gag, and discover that the infant is partly with us and partly still with the mother. Ren manages to pull his mangled leg from beneath the car and hobble off down the street, lugging a case with half a million dollars in it behind him. Soon, Lai is in hot pursuit through a festival parade during a holiday. Another final shoot out takes place.
Enough? This story of the Hong Kong police force and a gang of thieves is really fast -- so fast that it's not easy to keep up with the subtitles. It's the equal in tempo, action, and ambiguity of the better police/action thrillers from any Western source.
I had a problem keeping some of the characters straight for the first half hour, partly because the subtitles seemed to zip by and partly because the editing is at warp speed and there are few moments when things slow down enough for us to become accustomed to the unfamiliar actors with the unfamiliar names.
It's by no means a stupid movie, not insulting to any mind that's been around for more than fifteen years. Ren is the villain alright. He's a tough and savvy police officer but he's in league with the perps. And why? He needs the money because his love for a chorus girl of low status has held his promotions in check. It's a plausible excuse, especially when you see his radiantly beautiful girl friend, who knows nothing of his being particeps criminis. In abjectly stupid action movies, there is no such ambiguity. The heavies are simply innately evil. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having an innately evil bad guy but it's a challenge because, to make it successful, you have to have a very INTERESTING innately evil bad guy. (Viz., James Mason in "North By Northwest", or anybody in "Richard III.")
Engaging and informative views of the streets of Hong Kong. Man, they are crowded. They make New York look like the Gobi Desert. And -- here we have Hong Kong, a former British Crown Colony, now a part of the People's Republic of China -- no? And it doesn't look very Chinese. Grant Street in San Francisco looks more Chinese. The dialog uses a few borrowed English expressions; some of the signs are in English; there are advertisements for objects and appliances with whose brand names Americans are thoroughly familiar. And they're not all made in China. Toyota and Rolex are among the ads I noticed. The undercover cops look like bums. Nobody walks around in military suits with stiff upper collars. And the plot of the movie itself exposes corruption in a state-run institution.
But -- get this -- a whimper comes from a darkened corner and, lo, it is the very pregnant wife of a man for whose death Ren was responsible. She's gagged and wrapped in a sack and she's in labor. Delivery is imminent. Ren rushes to her and hurriedly begins unwrapping her.
But the garage door bursts open and Lai enters, hoping to catch the perps. Ren interrupts the unwrapping and he and Lai exchange shots, and then engage in an epic fist fight with no fancy chop-socky movies, just punches and thrown objects. Meanwhile the fire burns and the pregnant woman bubbles -- mmmph, mmph! A hanging car is dislodged during the fight and it falls on the bad guy's leg, shredding it and partly trapping him. This frees Lai to run to the woman, unwrap her completely, remove her gag, and discover that the infant is partly with us and partly still with the mother. Ren manages to pull his mangled leg from beneath the car and hobble off down the street, lugging a case with half a million dollars in it behind him. Soon, Lai is in hot pursuit through a festival parade during a holiday. Another final shoot out takes place.
Enough? This story of the Hong Kong police force and a gang of thieves is really fast -- so fast that it's not easy to keep up with the subtitles. It's the equal in tempo, action, and ambiguity of the better police/action thrillers from any Western source.
I had a problem keeping some of the characters straight for the first half hour, partly because the subtitles seemed to zip by and partly because the editing is at warp speed and there are few moments when things slow down enough for us to become accustomed to the unfamiliar actors with the unfamiliar names.
It's by no means a stupid movie, not insulting to any mind that's been around for more than fifteen years. Ren is the villain alright. He's a tough and savvy police officer but he's in league with the perps. And why? He needs the money because his love for a chorus girl of low status has held his promotions in check. It's a plausible excuse, especially when you see his radiantly beautiful girl friend, who knows nothing of his being particeps criminis. In abjectly stupid action movies, there is no such ambiguity. The heavies are simply innately evil. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having an innately evil bad guy but it's a challenge because, to make it successful, you have to have a very INTERESTING innately evil bad guy. (Viz., James Mason in "North By Northwest", or anybody in "Richard III.")
Engaging and informative views of the streets of Hong Kong. Man, they are crowded. They make New York look like the Gobi Desert. And -- here we have Hong Kong, a former British Crown Colony, now a part of the People's Republic of China -- no? And it doesn't look very Chinese. Grant Street in San Francisco looks more Chinese. The dialog uses a few borrowed English expressions; some of the signs are in English; there are advertisements for objects and appliances with whose brand names Americans are thoroughly familiar. And they're not all made in China. Toyota and Rolex are among the ads I noticed. The undercover cops look like bums. Nobody walks around in military suits with stiff upper collars. And the plot of the movie itself exposes corruption in a state-run institution.