The Red Wolf (1995) User Reviews

Under Siege, Hong Kong style.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 3 May 2006]

Red Wolf is a mid-90s actioner from director Yuen Woo Ping that steals the basic plot from Steven Seagal's Under Siege, adds various elements from Die Hard and throws in lot of bone-crunching martial arts and gun-play. Woo Ping, no slouch in the action choreography department, ensures that when the fists and feet fly, fight fans get exactly what they want.

Unfortunately, it takes a good half an hour of rather tedious plot development before things really take off and this dreary beginning spoils what might have been a very memorable movie; however, when the action finally begins, it doesn't let up until the closing credits roll.

Kenny Ho plays Alan, chief of security on a high class leisure cruiser that is taken over by terrorists. The bad guys are after some uranium that is on board and they will do whatever is necessary to get it. When Alan rumbles their plot, he fights back, aided by a beautiful cruise employee played by Christy Chung.

Of course, the wafer thin plot is nothing more than an excuse for loads of martial arts mayhem, and once the action kicks off, the blood and bullets fly thick and fast. The villains are a suitably vicious bunch of miscreants; innocent hostages are shot on a whim and the baddies take sadistic pleasure in the killing. The cabaret singer/terrorist, played by Elaine Lui, is particularly good, grinning maniacally as she kicks and blasts her way through the hapless passengers and crew.

There are some nice inventive fights using the various rooms of the ship, my favourite being the one that takes place in the sauna area — Alan spills soapy water on the floor and straps rubber mats to his feet; as his foe slips and slides uncontrollably, Alan is able to stay upright and unleash a flurry of unstoppable punches and kicks.

Woo Ping spoils things slightly towards the end with a ridiculous finale involving a small girl with a bomb strapped to her, and he is unable to resist throwing in some OTT wire-work which spoils the realism of the final fight.

Red Wolf isn't a classic martial arts film by any stretch of the imagination, but proves to be passable entertainment despite its flaws.

Die Hard variant with real spirit

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 19 November 2012]

An action-packed DIE HARD rip-off that mixes in bits and pieces from UNDER SIEGE for good measure, RED WOLF is a thoroughly enjoyable action movie. I don't usually like Hong Kong films from the 1990s; all too often they're marred by over-done wirework and a general dated feel which works against them. Not so RED WOLF: it kicks ass from the outset and continues to do so throughout with a series of elaborately staged and completely engaging action sequences.

Okay, so it's not a perfect film: it's a little rough around the edges and cheesy in places, and some of the performances are purely laughable. The lame comic relief from the hero's female ally is unwanted, too. But the film has plenty of reasons to overlook these flaws, not least Kenny Ho's ass-kicking lead: this Jackie Chan protégé certainly holds his own in the action stakes, and comes across as a charismatic star, too.

And he needs all the skill he can muster, because up against him is uber-villain Collin Chou (FLASHPOINT), once again delivering a deep and inventive portrayal as lead villain. No superficial stuff here: Chou makes the role his own, even making you kind of like the guy on occasion, and course he's a greater fighter as well. Yuen Woo-ping's steady direction, a strong level of inventiveness throughout and those aforementioned great fight scenes combine to make RED WOLF a whole load of fun!

Fairly average Hong Kong action movie...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 28 August 2012]

Well, for a Hong Kong action movie of this type, "Red Wolf" was sort of a mixed viewing pleasure on my behalf. I enjoyed most of the movie, but the movie was severely crippled by a horrible dialogue and some really lame attempts to incorporate humor into the movie (talking about the scene with the pile of food on the plate and the scene where the two women were fighting and Lai was resorting to some comic book/childish fighting of sorts).

The story in "Red Wolf" takes place on a boat (yeah, with similarities in plot to a mix of "Speed 2" and "Under Siege"), where security guard Alan (played by Kenny Ho) is left to thwart the plans of some terrorists. However, he gets help from the waitress Lai (played by Christy Chung).

I will say that the plot wasn't all bad. Sure there were holes here and there, but in overall it was enjoyable enough. But the movie had really, really bad dialogue which was at times painful to witness. The fight scenes were actually well executed and choreographed. And there is also a good amount of gunfights in the movie, so there is a little bit of everything for everyone.

The movie was really carried by the performance of Collin Chou (playing the first officer).

Just don't expect too much from this movie, or you might just set yourself up for disappointment. "Red Wolf" doesn't bring anything new or innovating to the Hong Kong action genre. And at times you wonder if this movie is a tribute to certain Hollywood movies; a rip off of certain Hollywood movies, or if it is just a coincidence. I will leave that decision up to the individual viewers.

"Red Wolf" is not amongst the greatest of Hong Kong action movies, and I doubt it will be high on the 'to watch' list of most people, unless really a fan of any on the cast list or if a die-hard fan of Hong Kong cinema. I will say that there are far better action movies from the Hong Kong cinema vault available.

Very, very below par

[ExpendableMan · 2/10 · 23 March 2005]

To say that this movie is a let down would be a tremendous understatement. Sitting on the shelves of various high street DVD outlets, resplendent in its Two Disc Special Edition packaging and with a back cover blurb that brings up director Yuen Woo Ping's work as fight choreographer on The Matrix Trilogy and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, you have to give credit for the packaging department for luring you into a false sense of belief that this movie is a hitherto overlooked milestone in HK action. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

I've heard it compared to the similarly disastrous Speed 2. In truth, the only link between the two is the setting on a luxury liner. Unlike Speed 2, where the task of slowing the out of control vessel was central to the plot, here, the ship is little more than something big, large and isolated for Kenny Ho to run around in. And speaking of Ho, his role as lead action hero leaves a lot to be desired. While he can handle the gun play and martial arts with as much flair as his contemporaries, his facial expressions remain largely unchanged throughout. There is a back story involving his dead wife which could have granted him more sympathy, but it is so woefully mishandled it feels like something that was tacked on for no particular reason. Twenty minutes after the credits roll, it's unlikely you'll remember anything about him. Besides, how can you feel any backing for a man who is supposed to be a security chief, yet fails to stop the villains from massacring nearly every passenger on the boat?

However, his co-star Elaine Lui really stands out. Not because she's a good actress you understand, but because her role as the comic relief slapstick foil backfires spectacularly as she becomes one of the most irritating screen heroines to appear in the Hong Kong Legends catalogue. A little bit of comedy in action films is okay now and again, but considering the ridiculously high bodycount and number of innocent people murdered in this movie, she seems very out of place. Her fight with Christy Chung for example is extremely tasteless, as Lui imitates martial arts stances and goes through a bumbling slapstick routine, mere minutes after a young girl watched her mother machine gunned before her eyes.

All in all then, not worth the effort. The action sequences are decent enough, but a bland leading man, immensely irritating heroine and a complete absence of emotion result in a film that Yuen Woo Ping would most probably want to forget.

Terrific fights, terrible acting, pocket-change budget

[LARSONRD · 4/10 · 4 July 2005]

Great martial arts action makes this cheap, low-budget, and poorly acted Yuen Woo-Ping film fairly entertaining and likable. The story is one we have seen many times before in many variations - terrorists take over a cruise ship and kill randomly, crew betrayals and heroic actions by a former cop (with a bitter past to add some depth to the character) to save the day are nothing new. A larger budget and better supporting actors would have made this lots better, but even so the no-wires-anywhere fight scenes are great despite the film's grade-Z budget, dumb stereotyped characters, and over-the-top slaughter-everyone violence. Worth a one-time see anyway.

Christy Cheung' s Butt. The End.

[DavyDissonance · 8/10 · 21 June 2017]

Some bandits hijack a boat to steal some $#!+. Red Wolf is a HK action movie that rips off Die Hard/Under Siege but what separates this film from those aforementioned films is the fact that Red Wolf is very very dark as rather than the hero trying to save everyone he can, he pretty much let's everyone die. Well, a majority of them die, I think. Well, whatever. Red Wolf is filled with human misery and suffering, and that's all that matters. Despite being a rip off, I was very pleased with the action which was bloody and well choreographed. The story works for what it is, the acting is silly and above all Christy's butt is nice.

Just melting away...

[winner55 · 4/10 · 11 November 2006]

I've read that this has a cult following; I suspect that Yuen Woo Ping has a cult following, members of which are trying very hard to like this film.

A few years before this film, Wong Jing (no one's favorite Hong Kong director) did a movie that was part "Die Hard" with kung fu (supplied by the ever-able Jet Li) and part satire on the career of Jackie Chan, "Meltdown". The film actually has some interesting moments, especially the finale, but the violence is too cruelly presented, even for a blood-thirsty old 'fu fan like me. The Chan satire makes the darkness tolerable, but is itself unnecessary.

What Yuen Woo Ping has done in "Red Wolf" is given us "Meltdown at Sea". that's about the size of it; except that Yuen has no satire here - no comic elements at all. Which means that, given the raw tension, and the sheer violence of the film, the over-all effect is down-right depressing.

I admit, it was so uncomfortable to watch, I couldn't finish the film. I don't know what happens at the end of the film. because the characters were so vapid, even watching them get killed didn't interest me.

the stars are for the choreography, which is top-notch of course; but really, I'm sure you can find something more amusing to do; and I wish Yuen Woo Ping had tried.

Very run-of-the-mill

[Cactus-5 · 14 July 2002]

Nope, this didn't cut it by a long shot. For some reason, we accept a lot of flaws in Hong Kong-movies that we otherwise wouldn't, but there's just so much in this movie that we actually laughed at it quite a few times. The story is boring, the jokes are lame and the action is sometimes clever but mostly just falls flat on illogical actions or bad props. The 5.1 surround sound was anything but surround - the only things I heard in the rear speakers were some weird sound effects (check the drumming sequence for example). So what was good? The video on the Hong Kong Legends UK DVD were fantastic, and the extras section just leave most DVDs way behind. But, deconstructing the cover slogan: "Tense" (ordinarily people shooting people can be intensive but when that's all they do, you tend to not react much after a short while) "and dynamic" (as in "all actors expand their one-dimensional characters by having their one facial expression throughout the movie") "with elements of black humour," (yes, slapstick is VERY dark) "Red Wolf is an unstoppable martial arts showcase" (except for the 80% of the movie where people talk or shoot guns) "in the best tradition of action-master, Yuen Woo-Ping." Well, I'll make sure to never watch one of his movies again.

Not to be missed

[gridoon · 8/10 · 10 June 2005]

"Red Wolf" gets off to a rather shaky start, but once the action kicks in, it is nonstop. The fight scenes are among the best I've ever seen; they are on the level of the rooftop climax of Jackie Chan's "Who Am I?", except they're not limited to one sequence, but they occur every 5 minutes or so. There is also a lot of shooting, and A LOT of shattered glass. But it's not a mindless movie; the characters often have to use their smarts to escape from sticky situations. Kenny Ho is a great fighter, full of intensity and conviction, and he appears to be doing all of his own stunts. Elaine Lui (who plays the BAD girl, NOT the hero's sidekick as others have said) is absolutely dazzling, a goddess of evil. Judging this movie on its own terms, I give it ***1/2 out of 4 stars. Sure, it's an "Under Siege" rip-off, but that's no reason to miss it.

Typical actioner from yuen woo-ping!

[Ash-89 · 4 October 1999]

The red wolf is basically a remake of ''die hard'' ,starring Bruce Willis, but this time the action is set in a cruise ship and not in a building. There is a good amount of action but the action is separated in little sequences(1 or maybe 2 minutes each) and the climactic fight does not even last 5 minutes. But the action is good (what else do you expect from Yuen woo-ping?) and Christy chung is looking better than ever(she even has a catfight in this one!). This is a fairly entertaining movie to rent but don't buy this one, buy Yuen woo-ping's masterpiece ''Iron monkey'' instead. This movie deserves 7,4/10

nice - but Woo Ping did already better

[webhamster · 2 April 2001]

Don't expect too much - the action is good, but hongkie buffs have seen it all before. Also, the story is a UNDER SIEGE rip-off (rather than DIE HARD, as mentioned in another review above). If you want me to compare it with others of this kind - I personally prefer HIGH RISK (this! was the DIE HARD rip-off, fella). the webhamster sez 4/10.