Tag: hong kong

Lethal Panther

  By

★★★½
“And then there’s the (Godfrey) Ho…”

Things we learned from this movie:

  • Being a prostitute is a healthier career for women than being an assassin – “unless the men have AIDS”.
  • Your neighbours will never call the police, even when a lengthy gun-battle breaks out on your property.
  • The CIA operates openly on American soil, and has apparently replaced the Secret Service in investigating counterfeit money.
  • The best way to give a woman an orgasm, is to fill a condom with milk, prick a hole in the end, and squirt it onto her panties. Who knew.

Any questions? In the loopy world of Category 3 Hong Kong films, which cover pretty much every bizarre scenario imaginable, Lethal Panther remains on the outer edge. I’m not quite sure how the makers got someone with a decent track record like Sibelle Hu to appear: I suspect she was sent a script for a completely different movie, probably entitled Lady Super Cop Goes to Manilla or something, since she only has about two scenes with the other lead actresses. I would imagine that her reaction, on seeing the finished product, must have been something similar to that experienced by Helen Mirren at the premiere of Caligula – and was presumably followed by a stern note to her agent the next morning.

The story centers on two assassins, one from Vietnam (Yuen), the other from Japan (Miyamoto), hired to come to the Phillippines and kill the head of an underworld gang that’s making a killing with counterfeit dollars. They’re employer is the boss’s nephew, who wants to take over operations: when that mission is accomplished, he then turns the two hit-women on each other, to tidy up the loose ends. They end up injured and recuperating at the home of a friendly prostitute, where they discover they are not so different. However, fate intervenes, in the shape of one’s brother, who returns from France. Meanwhile, a CIA agent (Hu) is looking into the funny money, and when her target is gunned down at a wedding, switches her attentions to the killers.

The formula here is straight-forward: an action scene about every ten minutes and some gratuitous nudity every twenty. And when I say ‘gratuitous’, I mean it; the last item listed in the first paragraph counts as the most bizarre use of dairy products Chris or I have seen in a very long time [Chris is floating Carmen Electra’s milk-bath in The Chosen One as a credible contender, but I don’t recall the specifics there]. None of the other sex scenes reach quite the same level of insanity, but they give the film a sleazy quality that it probably would have done better without.

The action is even more copious than the nudity however, and not bad, though one suspects a fair amount of doubling for the main actresses is going on. Despite Ho’s reputation as a complete hack [some of his films consist entirely of footage spliced together from other movies], he knows the right buttons for action heroine fans, and how to push most of them. On what I strongly suspect was a poverty-row budget – you don’t go to the Phillippines for the scenery – the movie delivers an impressive quantity of action, mixing firearm-toting and martial-arts battles to decent enough effect. All of the actresses get their moments to remember: a massacre in a restaurant and a supermarket shoot-out stand out in particular, as well as the roof-top fight between Hu and Yuen.

Y’know I just mentioned the poverty-row budget? Perhaps the area this stands out in most is the soundtrack, which appears to be a combination of stock music, and cues ripped wholesale off from other movies. Ho is far from the first Hong Kong director to do this [I still remember my jaw dropping when a chunk of the Heathers soundtrack showed up in Flying Dagger], but you really wonder, at what point did it seem a good idea to lob John Carpenter’s theme from Halloween into the mix for one scene? And, no, the moment in question does not involve a masked maniac stalking sexually-active teens – albeit probably only because Godfrey Ho didn’t think of the idea. Or, more likely, stored it away for an entire feature on this theme.

It would be easy to dismiss this as exploitative crap. Very easy, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, either. But it kept us entertained, even if a good chunk of the amusement was to be found in the steady stream of sarcasm directed at the screen by Chris and I, as the more ludicrous aspects unfolded. Still, Ho clearly possesses absolutely no pretensions to be anything above what he is, and delivers a B-movie experience that we likely will remember for some time, especially when we head past the milk in the supermarket.

Dir: Godfrey Ho
Stars: Yoko Miyamoto, Maria Yuen (as Maria Jo), Sibelle Hu, Alex Fong
a.k.a. Deadly China Dolls

In the Line of Duty III

  By

★★★★½
“The harder they come…”

Firstly, in case you’re wondering, there was no In the Line of Duty 2, or even In the Line of Duty. Well, not as such… In the Line of Duty is the European title for Royal Warriors, and In the Line of Duty 2 is Yes, Madam!. Even though the latter was made first, they were released in a different order in some territories, with the success of In the Line of Duty/Royal Warriors leading to a swift re-titling for marketing purposes of Yes, Madam!. However, one presumes makers D+B Films decided to save time, simply adopting the name for the third “installment” in the – really, non-existent – series. I hope you’re paying attention at the back. This will be on the test. ;-)

There was, however, a problem. Namely, the star of the previous two films, Michelle Yeoh (at that time, better known as Michelle Khan) was unavailable – having married D+B owner, Dickson Poon. Their choice was “Cynthia Khan”, a name obtained by combining that of the two Yes, Madam! stars, Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Khan. Like her predecessor, she was not from Hong Kong, coming from Taiwan, and was also both a martial-arts novice and a former dancer whose aspirations in that direction had been limited by injury. [You can also add Moon Lee into the “former dancer” category] Despite this lack of long-term background, she slots right in, and the result is a solid action heroine flick.

The plot is largely based around revenge; the catalyst is a Japanese cop (Fujioka), whose partner is shot by a terrorist (Ong) during a jewel robbery. He reckons the jewel owner, Yamamoto, was doing an insurance scam, and follows him to Hong Kong, since there is too much influence to press charges in Japan. The terrorist and his partner (Nishiwaki) have also come to Hong Kong, seeking to buy arms with their loot, but discover the jewels are fake, and they too have been scammed, so want to take it out on Yamamoto. Meanwhile, Madam Yeung (Khan) has joined the police squad run by her uncle; he doesn’t want her to do anything risky, despite her being the most talented officer on the roster, so assigns her to babysit the Japanese cop, show him the sights and keep him out of mischief.

No prizes for guessing exactly how well that works – or for predicting that it will all lead to a brutal brawl in a warehouse between Nishiwaki, Khan and Dick Wei, as the various agendas of revenge come into conjunction. It’s rough-housing at its best, with everything save the kitchen sink (but including an industrial drill) being used as weapons. While the doubling for Khan is occasionally apparent, there are also moments you think she’s being doubled, until she swings round to show her face. Overall, for what was basically her debut, it’s pretty impressive, and credit to action directors Chris Lee, Tony Leung Siu-Hung, Brandy Yuen and Yuen Cheung-yan, as well as, of course, to Khan herself.

in-the-Line-of-Duty3-001The script is not bad. It does suffer from the usual unevenness of tone, with occasional comedic interludes that detract from an impressively dark tone, especially as the film progresses. The worst offender there is a meaningless cameo by Eric Tsang and Richard Ng (well-known HK actress Sandra Ng also shows up in an early supporting role), but there are nice moments which help give all the characters depth, and the storyline makes basic sense, which is more than can be said for some entries in the genre. Though let’s just hope, it isn’t as easy to get a bomb – complete with ticking digital counter – into the heart of a Hong Kong police station these days!

What I particularly like about the film, is the nicely-built sense of escalation. The opening scene, in which Khan handles a traffic-offender, then a robber, is light fluff, like you’d expect from the Inspector Wears Skirts series. Almost immediately, however, the body count starts to rise, not least since the terrorists’ approach involves a startlingly reckless disregard for human life. While Khan’s acting talents are, perhaps wisely, hardly tested, Nishiwaki delivers a good performance of striking intensity, and it always struck me as a shame that she didn’t get many lead roles like this one: she’s more known for her cameos, as in God of Gamblers or My Lucky Stars.

This is undeniably a fun time-passer, and a good example of the HK girls-with-guns genre that flourished in the mid-80’s and has never quite been replicated since. There’s a moment towards the end where it’s suddenly made clear that anyone could die at any moment in this film: something you’ll rarely see in a Western flick (outside the horror genre, at least). It’s perhaps a shame they didn’t do this earlier, since from that moment on, this has a reckless, unpredictable attitude which ranks with the best action movies.

Dir: Brandy Yuen and Arthur Wong
Stars: Cynthia Khan, Hiroshi Fujioka, Michiko Nishiwaki, Stuart Ong

License to Steal

  By

★★★★½
“Thieves Like Us.”

This is an largely over-looked gem, featuring the future Mrs. Samo Hung (Godenzi – they married in 1995) in a role and performance which are so excellent, as to make you wonder why she apparently quit the cinema the following year [though she does have a cameo in Mr. Nice Guy, appearing in the cooking show audience]. She first came to attention in Eastern Condors and, despite a lack of training, developed a graceful, fluid style of action that works well. Her best known vehicle is She Shoots Straight, but for my money, this is even better.

She plays Hung, one of three sisters who are the business end of a family of thieves. Their guardian decides to pass the clan on to Hung, but another sister, Ngan (Aurelio, also from She Shoots Straight) wants control – she fixes a job so that Hung is captured, then takes over operations, using brute force and murder rather than skill and agility on their robberies. Three years later, Hung’s sentence is ended, but her sister immediately frames her again: to avoid jail, Hung agrees to co-operate with the police and work towards capturing her sister. She discovers Ngan has been hired to steal Napoleon’s death-mask, and the film climaxes with the two sisters battling each other inside the warehouse where the treasure is guarded.

This is almost two plots for the price of one, as on the police side, you have the investigating cop (Ng), who has to keep an eye both on his new partner (Ngai Sing) and a swordplay-novel obsessed nephew (Yuen Biao), who both want to help, but together are as much a distraction as an assistance. This lends itself to the usual goofy and unsubtle HK comedy – for example, Ng stripping to his boxers after believing there’s a bomb hidden in them – though these aspects don’t grate nearly as badly as I’ve seen elsewhere. There are also a bunch of cool moments to the plot which are probably unnecessary, in the larger scheme of things, but are thoroughly satisfying, and suggest someone actually thought the script out, again something not always the case in HK action cinema.

Godenzi is great, putting over a great combination of coolness and charisma, with a confident attitude that’s wholly justified. It’s established in the first scene that she knows how to push her sister’s buttons, and this comes back into play right at the end. Aurelio, a Filipina powerlifting champion, is a little less adept at acting, but is well-cast as the villainess, with a good sneer. There’s one amazing, politically-incorrect exchange between the characters, when they meet for the first time after Hung’s release from jail. Ngan sneers, “You look plump,” to which Hung replies, “Better than you, with sunburn like a nigger!” Ah, the 1990’s…

But this one is less about offensive banter, than action scenes which are top-notch, from the opening practice duel between the sisters, through to the final battle – this time for real. It’s particularly inventive as, early on, the sisters have to fight each other without making a sound, to avoid alerting the guards The highlight is, however, probably an amazing fight in a car-park – one of the top locations for mayhem in HK films, right up there with restaurants and warehouses – where everyone bar Aurelio gets involved. Her role as top villain there is delegated to Billy Chow, who went toe-to-toe with Jet Li in Fist of Legend, and he’s one hell of a formidable opponent. The action choreography is credited to Lee King-chu, but I suspect producer Samo Hung had more than a little involvement.

There is little or no depth here, only really what Godenzi brings to the table. But there is, equally, little or no intent of depth either: this was created purely as entertainment, nothing more, and on that level it succeeds admirably. It’s a real shame Godenzi chose not to follow a career as an action actress since, on this showing, she could well have ended up as big a star in the field as Michelle Yeoh.

[A note on spelling. The sleeve says ‘LicenCe’, but the print goes with the S. The former is also grammatically inaccurate, so I’ve gone with the S spelling throughout this article.]

Dir: Billy Chan
Stars: Joyce Godenzi, Agnes Aurelio, Richard Ng, Alvina Kong

Naked Weapon

  By

★★★★

Naked Weapon (2002)After a decade of “sequels” that weren’t worth the video-tape they were apparently filmed on, Wong Jing finally went back to the well in 2002 for what is, in truth, a surprisingly-tame movie. Given the names of the lead actresses (“Maggie Q”, “Anya”) sounded more like porn starlets than anything, I was expecting loadsa sleazy fun, but they’re model names, and this is probably closer to Heroic Trio – also directed by Ching – than the original.

In fact, the nipple-count here barely reaches two, mostly right at the start when Madam M’s (Wong) assassinettes go on the job, only to be killed by a rocket-propelled grenade. Her boss clearly takes the long-term view, kidnapping forty thirteen-year olds girls, and whisking them off to a remote island for a six-year version of Survivor. At the end, they are down to three in number: Charlene (Q), Katt (Anya) and Jill (Jewel Lee, who is a genuine Wu Shu expert, and also doubled for the other stars when necessary). However, dogged CIA agent Jack (Wu) is still on the trail of Madam M, falls in love with Charlene during an encounter in the back of an ice-cream truck – which must have been fun, given Wu was Q’s ex-boyfriend – and vows to save her from a life of meaningless murder.

The action sequences are great: director Ching is noted for his wire-work in films like A Chinese Ghost Story and Hero – it’s used to great effect here, just don’t expect “realistic” fighting skills. The editing is weird in that it’s not coherent, but still works – it’s almost like highlights, in that consecutive shots clearly don’t connect, but still are effective, and give a good sense of how the fight is progressing. The editors on shows like Alias could learn a lot from this. Speaking of which, the film has much the same feel as a feature-length version of the series, back when it was still good fun, and before the whining and angst took over. Exotic locations, high-fashion, plenty of ass-kicking – on that level, this film certainly delivers. It’s also a nice bonus to see Cheng Pei-Pei (Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger) as Charlene’s mother, though I kept expecting her to bust out a few moves on the bad guys.

Instead, there’s a laughable scene after an assassination attempt on her by Jill, at the behest of Madam M, who realises she could lose Charlene back to her mother. Jack ends up carrying the wounded parent to the hospital, but keeps stopping to converse with Charlene, which had us screaming, “The hospital! It’s over there! She’s bleeding profusely!” at the TV set. And in general, I’m unconvinced by the story, which suddenly shifts angles in the third act. Up until then, it’s been angling towards a confrontation between the girls and Madam M; that’s suddenly discarded, in favour of a villain we’d not seen before.

Despite possessing more holes than a golf resort, Wong Jing’s script is pretty restrained; even the lesbian aspects are more implied than shown, and mercifully, the dumb comedy beloved by Wong is almost entirely absent. However, there is a rather nasty rape scene to end the training; while I can see the point, it does go on past what’s necessary and doesn’t fit with the generally slick tone. For even when the film is gunning down pre-pubescent girls for attempting to leave Madam M’s fantasy island, it does so in a…well, “tasteful manner” isn’t perhaps the phrase, but you know what I mean.

For in general, this is fast-paced, mindless entertainment, not to be taken the least bit seriously. At least, that’s my view: reading others, it’s clear opinions differ sharply on this one: “In a year of relatively disappointing Asian films, it’s one of the worst around,” says filmsasia.net, but hkfilm.net calls it, “The best movie of 2002.” Weirder still, one person described this as “boredom-inducing”, which had me checking to see whether they were discussing the same film. If you’re bored here, you probably need to lay off the caffeinated beverages for a few days: those of us with normal metabolisms should be more than entertained by this fluff.

Is it better than Naked Killer? A difficult call, and one that likely depends on your state of mind – as well as whether the word “good” could ever be applied to Killer, a lurid blast that really could come from Hong Kong, and probably only from before the Chinese takeaway of the colony. Weapon is certainly better-crafted and has more crossover appeal: our son was going to pick it up in Blockbuster, till we informed him it was already part of our unwatched pile. On the whole, I think Weapon is the one more likely to be watched again in future – if only because Killer would require the room to be carefully swept for lurking minors and maiden aunts first.

[The sidenote of importance here for the DVD is: watch your language. As usual with Hong Kong movies, we opted to see it in Chinese with English subtitles. It wasn’t until the making-of documentary that we realised it had been shot mostly in English (Wu + Q do, others, such as Cheng, don’t), and we’d actually been watching a dubbed version. Oops. ;-) However, upon further viewing (hey, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it!), it doesn’t really make that much difference. The main benefit of the English track is, at least on the DVD we were watching, it’s available in DTS, which definitely enhances things.]

Dir: Ching Siu-Tung
Stars: Maggie Q, Anya, David Wu, Almen Wong

Come Drink With Me

  By

★★★
“Good, but don’t believe the hype.”

Perhaps I was expecting too much, after reading reviews that described this as, “one of, if not the, greatest martial arts film of all time.” It’s not, at least, not from my perspective, with a storyline that is sparse and badly-finished; the heroine and chief villain vanish before the climax and there’s absolutely no resolution, with the film suddenly diverting into a battle between a pair of supporting characters. It’s a shame, as Cheng Pei-Pei [the Jade Fox of Crouching Tiger was once a very intense teenager] deserves better. She plays Golden Swallow, the sword-adept daughter of the Governor, who is sent to rescue her brother after he’s kidnapped by bandits who want to exchange him for their leader.

The action is a mixed bag; there are some very bad effects, which jar the viewer out of an appreciation of the real, almost balletic, physicality, easily appreciated through the long tracking shots. These are as much dances as fights – Cheng had being doing ballet since she was eight. Less effective is the alcoholic beggar Drunken Cat (Yueh), who wanders through the storyline, with his band of ragamuffins, bringing things to a grinding halt when they appear. Of course, it’s giving little away if I say he turns out to be a martial arts master with entirely his own agenda, but unfortunately, that’s where the film heads, the further things go on.

Poor Golden Swallow is all but abandoned, and that’s a shame: the scene where she sits calmly in a tea-house, as the villains work at gauging her skills, is a masterpiece of suppressed, yet inevitable violence, up there with the best moments of Sergio Leone. There’s also a very odd subplot in which Swallow is initially mistaken for a man; it’s so utterly implausible as to make us wonder if it was a subtitling mistake. And maybe it was, for half-way through, this is discarded without explanation. It’s unsatisfying, and adds to my feeling that, while I can see the influence of this 1966 movie, it’s a case where later entries that build upon the foundation, do a better job.

Dir: King Hu
Star: Cheng Pei-Pei, Yueh Hua, Chen Hung-lieh, Yeung Chi-hing

Queen Boxer

  By

★★
“Lee’s skills all but concealed by dreadful release of her debut.”

I have to say, this film would probably merit a higher score given a better presentation. Not only is the GoodTimes DVD barely VHS quality, dubbed and horribly cropped, the dialogue is missing from the right audio. Worst of all, the two tracks are out of sync, meaning that every punch is accompanied by a double sound effect. If there’s a more dreadful DVD in existence, I don’t want to see it: those responsible should suffer the fate depicted in the fabulous poster, shown on the right.

However, one suspects that even under better conditions, large chunks of this would be pretty poor, bordering as it does on the incoherent, with inadequate definition both of plot and characters. Also known as The Avenger, this 1972 film marked Judy Lee’s first film – originally from Taiwan, she was a Peking Opera classmate of Angela Mao. In this, she plays a woman for revenge on the man who killed her brother and gouged his eyes out, and teams up with another guy (Yeung), who is fed up paying protection money to the same villain. They enter the boss’s lair, but he gets shot, and they have to back off – only for her to return, and take them on by herself.

Those two action scenes are both lengthy and pretty good. The lack of directorial inspiration shown here is actually a virtue, since he basically just turns the camera on and off – this is what you need to admire Lee’s skills, which aren’t bad at all. However, up until the last 20 minutes, the only fun is making fun of the film, or listening to the chunks from Shaft and Bond ripped off on the soundtrack. That, and a glorious, deeply satisfying final shot, aren’t enough to save things – but, being honest, few movies could probably survive such godawful treatment.

Dir: Han Wah [according to the DVD sleeve, anyway…]
Star: Judy Lee, Yeung Kwan, Wong Yeuk Ping, Lee Ying

Silverhawk

  By

★★½
“Comic-book stuff – unfortunately, in the bad sense of the phrase.”

There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.

The problem here is mostly a script with no idea how to fill the gaps between the fight scenes, succumbing to the nemesis of so many HK films: juvenile humour. Jen is the worst offender, playing a cop out to track down Lulu Wong (Yeoh), a.k.a. SilverHawk, who is so incompetent we’re given no credible reason to believe he’d be put in charge of tea-making, never mind a high-profile investigation. They were in the same orphanage as kids: yes, it’s that kind of script. Inevitably, they team up to go against bad guy Alexander Wolfe (Goss) who wants to control people’s minds using mobile phones – the satirical potential in this idea is, inevitably, never realised. The potential for product placement, on the other hand…Nokia and BMW are the big winners there.

That’d all be okay, if the action was above average. It’s not. While still the best thing here, we actually fell asleep during the climax, and had to rewind once we woke up. There’s little sense of escalation: once you’ve seen the opening battle, that’s pretty much all the movie has to offer, save various gimmicks. Silverhawk battles thugs on bungee cords! [The producers were clearly hoping we’d all forgotten Tomb Raider, which at least made a thin pretense at explaining itself there] Thugs on roller-blades! Wolfe is clearly not short of imagination – except when it comes to giving his henchmen firearms, naturally.

It’s great to see Yeoh, now in her forties, still do a motorcycle jump across the Great Wall. However, things like the clunky mix of languages cripple this, and the result definitely won’t help Yeoh’s career. After Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, the world was at her feet, but projects such as The Touch and this one have proved very disappointing. Her talent remains clear; her judgement, on the other hand, is clearly very questionable.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Richie Jen, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang

Don’t Play With Fire

  By

★★★½
“A grim cinematic road-accident; hard to watch, yet harder to stop watching.”

This bleak, nihilist view of 1980’s Hong Kong ran into severe trouble with local censors, for its depiction of the colony as populated solely by violent brutes. Leading these is Pearl (Lin), a teenage girl who redefines the term “troubled”, and whose brother (Lo) is a cop with a short fuse. She witnesses a hit-and-run accident and browbeats the three kids involved into joining her in a relentlessly-escalating series of violent escapades. When they find themselves in possession of 800 million yen belonging to gun-smugglers, you just know things are going to go wrong. And they do: pointedly, Hark finishes the film with photos taken during the 1967 riots in the colony. Make of that what you will…

Right from the start, with Pearl sticking pins in the head of a mouse, the film doesn’t shy from depicting cruel behaviour, particularly towards animals, and there’s hardly a sympathetic character in the film. Pearl does at least have some justification for her lack of morality, and her attempts to weld her new “friends” into something like a team, or even a family are touchingly pathetic. At one point she suggests they’ll escape to Canada and live happily ever after, which is definitely not going to happen. However, the film swerves wildly around, leaping from plot to plot with little coherence, though censorship may explain why certain threads, such as the bombing campaign, seem especially underdeveloped.

Whether robbing a gang of Japanese tourists, or taking revenge on a banker who gave them bad information, Pearl is the lynch-pin who keeps the movie focused, and when she departs, the interest level drops noticeably. Still, if you’ve only seen Tsui’s subsequent, more fantastic films, the venomous realism will be a shock. Keep an eye out for him in an uncredited role as a toilet attendant(!), as well as fellow directors Ronnie Yu and Stephen Shin.

Dir: Tsui Hark
Stars: Lin Chen-chi, Lo Lieh, Albert Au, Paul Che
a.k.a. Dangerous Encounters of the 1st Kind

Angel on Fire

  By

★★½
“Dumb but not irredeemable – never mind the quality of the action, look at the quantity!”

Supermodel-thief Mimi (Melanie Marquez) steals an artifact from a Chinese temple, then heads to the Philippines, via Hong Kong. HK and Chinese cops (Khan & Yeung) are on her tail, as is former partner Ko. This is, frankly, a mess. Yeung apparently does no detective work; Khan goes on a date to an illegal street fight; they’re supposedly partners, but only share one scene; and what is the stolen item? It’s only ever called “the precious thing” (at least in the sub version; even we wouldn’t touch the dub [right] with a ten-foot pole). I found it all amusing rather than irritating; your mileage may vary…

Actionwise, it largely explodes in the lengthy finale which occupies about thirty minutes, sprawls across what seems like most of the Philippines, and fails to make much sense either – we certainly lost track of who was doing what to who. While Yeung is hardly allowed to act, she does get a couple of good fights, but the wire-work is poor, with one especially obvious harness. On the other hand, Khan’s martial-arts abilities are underused, and she gets to spend time hanging out with that apparently rare breed, an honest taxi-driver (Ricketts). A couple of decent moments, and Khan’s usual watchability, lift this up to just about acceptable, though only if you are in a forgiving mood.

Dir: Phillip Ko
Star: Cynthia Khan, Philip Ko, Sharon Yeung, Ronnie Ricketts

The Magic Crane

  By

★★★½
“Plotplotfightplotfightplotfightfightplotfight.”

This is one of those Hong Kong movies which seems to believe that if they cram in enough complications and characters, you’ll overlook the deficiencies. They’re kinda right: if you can let go (I did, Chris couldn’t), you will enjoy this a whole lot more, though here, it’d take five times as much plot to make you ignore the truly woeful titular bird. There would seem to have been confusion in the prop department over whether the request for a “giant crane” meant a bird or a piece of construction equipment: it looks as if they split the difference, building something with feathers, which remains (painfully) obviously mechanical.

All the kung-fu masters are getting together to carve out territories; Leung and Lau represent about the smallest school imaginable, but are befriended by Pak Wan Fai (Mui), a mysterious lady who rides the crane. Her foster-sister (Kwan) has been building resentment for 20+ years, and inevitably, someone else is plotting to wipe out all their martial-arts rivals. The battles are great, and most of the characters too (among the supporting cast, especially memorable is Jan Lau’s engagingly slutty Lady Jade Flute, who brings a Basic Instinct approach to her kung-fu) – but there are way too many, and the same goes for the plot elements (Killer bats? A guy with no legs in a well?). Less would certainly be more; instead, they don’t get the attention they deserve. As you’d expect from a Tsui Hark production, the visual side is stylish and impressive – just don’t look for a high degree of coherence.

Dir: Benny Chan
Star: Tony Leung, Anita Mui, Rosamund Kwan, Damian Lau