In the Line of Duty VII: Sea Wolves (1991)

In the Line of Duty VII: Sea Wolves (1991)
Chinese Title: 海狼
Translation: Sea Wolf 

 

Starring: Cynthia Khan, Simon Yam, Garry Chow, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, Eddie Maher, Mak Wai-Cheung, Lau Wai-Man, Wong Yuk-Hang
Director: Cheng Siu-Keung
Action Director: Philip Kwok

I mentioned in my review of the last entry in the series that, for all of Forbidden Arsenal’s entertainment value, it was ultimately a generic girls n’ guns action film plagued by a low budget and some very uneven action direction from Philip Kwok. In any case, Cynthia Khan, director Cheng Siu-Keung, and action choreographer Philip Kwok got together again the same year to make this film, which would turn out to be the swan song of the In the Line of Duty series and Cynthia’s fifth (and last) official appearance as Madame Inspector Yeung. Thankfully, with a better cast, a slightly bigger budget (or at least behind-the-camera talent that made the film look like it had a bigger budget), and more consistently good action from Philip Kwok all work together to allow the series to end on a good, if not great, note.

The movie begins with some random drug deal being carried out by Chui (Philip Kwok, Hard Boiled and Ode to Gallantry), only to be broken up by the sudden appearance of Inspector Yeung (Cynthia Khan, Yes Madam 5 and Supercop.com) and her partner, Ah Min (Lau Wai-Man, The Inspector Wears Skirtsand South Shaolin Master II). Bullets are fired and kicks are thrown and soon we learn that this action sequence has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film.

The next scene, however, will. We switch to a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean outside of Hong Kong. The crew is made up of a group of familiar faces, including Norman Tsui (Wing Chun and The Deadly Mantis), Mak Wai-Cheung (the eagle claw fighter in Legend of the Wolf), Eddie Maher (Yes, Madam and The Pedicab Driver), and Simon Yam (Hitman and Wake of Death). Our first clue that they’re up to no good is when we see them hiding handguns wrapped in plastic inside of oil drums on the ship. They must be smugglers.

A second, more telling clue that these guys are more crooked than a barrel of snakes (I love that line) is when they come across a ship full of Vietnamese emigrants floating adrift on open sea. After helping the emigrants onto the ship, they proceed to hack them all to death with machetes, after which they steal whatever money they had planned on taking with them into Hong Kong. So these guys are not only smugglers, but modern day pirates as well (maybe those Somali pirates wouldn’t give us so much hassle if we sicc’d Inspector Yeung on them). There is one survivor, however, and that’s Garry (Garry Chow, who played a villain in the previous ITLOD film), an extremely muscular fellow who, fortunately for him, is an old friend of John’s (Yam). John hides Garry, who hits his head on something hard and metallic at one point, conveniently coming down with amnesia.

When the ship arrives in the Hong Kong harbor, the usual customs search of the ship goes well until some customs agents discover Garry hidden away on the ship. They try to arrest him, but he fights his way off and flees into Hong Kong itself. Meanwhile, Inspector Yeung gets into another random, but well-choreographed fight scene that has little to no bearing on the plot. Garry meets up with Yelia (Wong Yuk-Hang, The Killer’s Love), a prostitute friend of Inspector Yeung’s. Seeing the large wad of cash Garry has on him, Yelia takes him shopping for some real clothes (leading some komedy where he his large muscles cause him to rip through several good suits) and have some fun around town. She’ll also take advantage of his money for her own use, although as a good professional, Yelia also gives him some of her services in return.

While all this is going on, an arms deal between the pirates and some buyers goes awry, and the pirates end up killing every single one of their clients. One of the clients, however, rips off a locket that belonged to Garry’s sister and had his picture in it, so when the police come to investigate, Garry the illegal immigrant is the prime suspect. Yeung, having seen Garry briefly with Yelia, figures that he’s at her pad and pays her friend a visit with a number of cops in tow. Garry flees into the forest, chased by Yeung, leading to a kung fu/stunt sequence in the forest and at a construction site filled with (presumably) illegal immigrants.

Garry finally meets back up with John, who tries to protect him from the police and get him back on the ship. On John’s side is the captain (Lam Seung-Mo, So Close), who happens to be his brother. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew is getting antsy to just get the heck out of dodge and the captain’s insistence on waiting for John and Garry to get back isn’t winning him any friends. Finally, John arranges for a meeting with a captain at a cemetery. Said meeting doesn’t go very well, with the pirates, led by Norman Tsui, turning against the captain and killing him. John and Garry escape, but are now on the run from both the police, led by Inspector Yeung, and the pirates themselves. Things are going to get a lot more violent from here on out.

One of the things that Forbidden Arsenal lacked was a memorable villain. I mean, yes, the villain was played by Robin Shou, whom we all recognize as the guy who played Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat films and who co-starred in Beverly Hills Ninja. Robin Shou had played a really good villain the previous year in Yuen Woo-Ping’s Tiger Cage II, but in that film the action was top-notch and Shou’s character was particularly brutal, especially in his fight against David Wu. In ITLOD 6, he just wasn’t that menacing. I bring this up because the ITLOD series usually prided themselves on villains that were memorable because they were nasty (Pai Ying in Royal Warriors, Michiko Nishiwaki and Stuart Ong in ITLOD 3) or really good fighters (Dick Wei in Yes, Madam!; Michael Woods and John Salvitti in ITLOD 4; Billy Chow and Kim Maree Penn in ITLOD 5) backed by good action directors.

I’m glad to say that this last film in the series stays true to form by having villains that are somewhat memorable, mainly Norman Tsui, on account of how evil they are. The massacre sequence early on establishes how much we want to see these guy die horrible deaths by the film’s denouement, but Norman Tsui, a good actor and one of those fellows blessed with the ability to do practically anything the choreographer tells him to do, just keeps on chugging by stabbing people to death with a very big, scary-looking knife and killing cops. You really want him to get every bone in his upper body broken by the end of the film.

Also, one of the calling cards of the series is that Inspector Yeung spends the entire film being a righteous upholder of justice, playing by the rules as much as possible, only to go above the law at the end in order to bring the criminals to justice, for one reason or another. The previous film lacked that, as her courageous assault on Shou’s base was the result of the officer running the operation getting shot to death, leaving her more or less in charge. Here, she basically goes above the law by invading the pirate ship after it’s already left the Hong Kong harbor and thus out of police jurisdiction. This leads to a memorable end where the two heroes have gotten their hands on the main villain and Inspector Yeung simply turns her back as they brutal put him to death, citing that she has no legal power on the high seas.

Philip Kwok’s action here is quite good, constituting one of his better choreography gigs of his post-Venom Mob career. As the other films in the series, we get a fair combination of fist and gun action and Cynthia Khan is at the top of her game, especially in the finale on the ship. Her kicks are powerful and she’s quite acrobatic, more so than other films of the era. As usual, we get a number of found objects, knives, iron bars, sledge hammers, cargo nets, etc. being used as weapons throughout the course of the film. The finale is the best fight in the film, although Khan’s second random fight early on is also very well mounted. One thing neat about the former is how well Khan performs in such a claustrophobic environment, especially while fighting against multiple opponents. We wish Kwok could have maintained this level of quality in all of his films throughout his career.

Garry Chow, whose chiseled physique helps make for a memorable character, fights better here than he did in Forbidden Arsenal. He mainly uses fast, short-range punches and professional wrestling-inspired throws. Simon Yam also tries to fight, although he’s a little less convincing here than in other films. It’s pretty obvious he’s not a trained martial artist, especially when fighting alongside someone like Cynthia Khan.

Fans of 1980s HK cinema will recognize character actor Tai Bo, a Jackie Chan regular, in a supporting role as an arrogant cop. His role is mainly that of comic relief, and is somewhat out of place in an otherwise serious and violent action film. The same sort of criticism was levied by some viewers at In the Line of Duty III, which was extremely hardcore in terms of sex and violence, but then had broad humor supplied by Richard Ng of all people.

The main problem with this film is that it’s not completely Cynthia Khan’s movie. She’s the main character and gets the best fight scenes, but the bulk of the plot is devoted to Gary  Chow and Simon Yam. We can make the argument that this happens in a lot of Cynthia Khan films, or even the ITLOD series as a whole, and even justify it from the point of view that the conflict, modern day pirates preying on emigrant boats, is unique enough that focusing on one of the victims is a nice departure from the usual police procedural story perspective. Most people, however, will dismiss the approach as being sexist and complain that the filmmakers didn’t think Cynthia Khan could carry a film by herself, despite being a pretty good actress, a beautiful woman, and a great onscreen fighter.

I won’t say that this film is as good as the first, second, fourth, and fifth installments in the In the Line of Duty series, because it isn’t. It is, however, a step up from part six and a decent enough action film on its own merits to merit a good score and a recommendation from yours truly. I’m sad that the series ended here. I’d like for Benny Chan to make a big-budget action movie with Cynthia Khan called New In the Line of Duty and fill it full of large-scale stunts and quality kung fu, although he could probably do with changing his choreographer from Nicky Li to Corey Yuen. Or maybe just get Yuen Woo-Ping and his team back again. That’d be awesome.