Just Heroes (1989)

Just Heroes (1989)
Chinese Title: 義膽群英
Translation: Righteousness and Bravery

Starring: David Chiang Da-Wei, Danny Lee Sau-Yin, Chen Kuan-Tai, Tien Niu, Cally Kwong Mei-Wan, Stephen Chow Sing-Chi, Chao Lei, James Wong Jim, Ku Feng, Ti Lung, Shing Fui-On, Wu Ma, Yueh Hua, Paul Chun Pui
Director: John Woo, Wu Ma
Action Directors: Yuen Bun, Lau Kar-Wing

 

Probably John Woo's most criticized film of his Heroic Bloodshed/Bullet Ballet cycle. It was made as a fundraiser for Chang Cheh, who executive produced. It was also co-directed by the other Woo, that is, Wu Ma (another former Chang Cheh protégé). Apparently 80% was directed by Woo on a virtual shoestring--the actors apparently worked for free--with Wu Ma and the leads directing the rest.

The story is a bit complex. Boss Tsou is a Triad boss who runs a shipping business that he uses for smuggling purposes (albeit we learn later that drugs are a no-no). Tsou wants to go straight, but before he can do that, he is murdered in his car at a gas station in a hit that suggests an inside job. When his successor is announced, Uncle Ma (Wu Ma) goes against the original will and testament and names Sou (Danny Lee) to the post. This upsets both Tai (Chen Kuan Tai) and his main enforcer, Jacky (Stephen Chow), who blames himself for Tsou's murder. Whose name was actually on the will? That would be Wai (David Chiang), who gave up the Triad business to run a small fishery. Wai stays on the sidelines for a period. The real complications begin when a tape emerges implicating Sou in the murder, which sets off Jacky. Jacky takes his "righteous" anger out on Sou's pregnant wife (Tien Nu), which gets blamed on another arms dealer (Shing Fui-On), who had been pressuring Sou to start up a partnership before. Soon the bullets start flying and bodies start piling up.

The main problem with this film is that there are so many characters that it's difficult to say just who the main character is. The movie spends almost equal time with all of them, so they ultimately feel underdeveloped. Usually, John Woo contents himself with two or three principal protagonists and several well-written supporting characters, with the rest being cannon fodder. But here, it's never completely clear if the movie wants to be about David Chiang's reluctant return to the Triad World, Chen Kuan-Tai's hidden ambition, Stephen Chow's search for justice, or Danny Lee's attempts to learn how to lead a Triad organization. It's all of those and more, and thus feels a lot shallower than your average John Woo Heroic Bloodshed film.

The action is all gunplay, brought to you courtesy of Lau Kar-Wing (who did the Heroic Bloodshed thing with Dragon Family) and Yuen Bun (who did the gunfights for Chow Yun-Fat's City War). The gunfights are surprisingly uneven, which makes me wonder if the film didn't start with one action director and then simply switched to another. That would be strangely reminiscent of Once Upon a Time in China, in which Lau Kar-Wing started out as the main action director, and then Tsui Hark brought in two of the Yuen Clan brothers when Lau proved far too traditional for his tastes. The opening gunfight against Philip Ko and his men feels a bit awkward. The assassination sequence in the rain at a gas station isn't quite so much a gunfight, but is okay. The shootout at the mine is also okay, hampered by Danny Lee spending most of the scene driving in circles.

The two set pieces that stand out are a flashback where David Chiang takes out some clients who are using the shipping business for drugs (a no-no), who are led by Kong Do. This is where you get a lot more over-the-top gun-fu stunts, which is what made me wonder if this wasn't the point that Yuen Bun stepped in. Then there's the climax, which is a gunfight between all of the main characters inside a mansion. That has more one-on-one/two-on-one gunplay, plus some more of those crazy only-in-the-movies gun stunts. It doesn't match Woo's other films in terms of sheer body count, but it's long and feels a bit more choreographed than some of those films' scenes. I thought that was nice.

Finally, I guess Woo finally felt the need to address the impact of his movies on the masses. A Better Tomorrow was one of the top-grossing films of the entire decade. It had an enormous impact on the careers of its stars and director, and even apparently made a lot of ignorant kids want to join Triad gangs. In this movie, there's a character, an employee at David Chiang's fishery, who is always citing lines from A Better Tomorrow and asking Chiang to let him join the organization. At the end, when he gets excited at having survived a gunfight, David Chiang grabs him and forces him to look up close at a body of a man who took a bullet to the head. He then asks, "Do you want to be a mob boss, or work at a fishery?" In other words, a movie may stylize or glorify violence, but in the end, it's just a movie. Real violence is fucking scary. Don't you ever forget that.