Three more short Girls n' Guns Reviews

China Heat (1992)
aka: Paid in Blood
Chinese Title: 中華警花
Translation: Chinese Police Flower

Starring: Sibelle Hu, Michael Depasquale Jr., Allen Lan, Sherry Hon Wing-Ching, Meng Xiang-Li, cameos by Sophia Crawford and Mark Houghton
Director: William Cheung Kei, Yang Yang
Action Directors: Allen Lan, Lee Chi-Ping, Ku Gaai-Lam, Chui Ji-Kei, Wong Koon-Fat

I remember this being released on VHS by Tai Seng in the late 90s as part of the "China Heat" series, alongside Spider Force and Hard to Die. This is generally placed in the lower end of the Girls n' Guns bell curve, and I can generally see why. I didn't find it particularly inept--save the gunfights, which were terribly staged--but it has no depth to it. There's no heart here. No reason to care for anyone in this movie.

The movie starts off with Sibelle Hu and her female commando team storming a plane held hostage by terrorists and killing all the bad guys...with reckless disregard for the lives of the passengers. Later, Madame Hu and her team of dozens of gun-toting women in military fatigues interrupt a drug deal, which results in a huge firefight. The main drug dealer, Harry (Allen Lan), gets away and flees to the States. There, he becomes part of a crime family led by a German guy. But he's quickly arrested and is to be extradited back to China. 

Madame Hu sends three of her agents--Mandy (Meng Xiang-Li), Yolanda (Sherry Hon), and some guy--to escort Harry back to China. On the way to the airport, the police cars are ambushed by Harry's men and the Chinese police guy is seriously injured. Meanwhile, Madame Hu shows up to give her team support. Chinese police guy and Mandy are both kidnapped, while Madame Hu and American police officer Michael (Despasquale, who played Loren Avedon's brother in King of the Kickboxers) are attacked by German guy's goons. Michael is taken off the case and turns in his badge in defiance.

Yolanda has a warehouse fight with Harry's goons and is captured herself. She escapes, but her two partners don't: nameless guy is killed. Yolanda, Madame Hu, and Michael team up to storm German guy's mansion and find out where Harry's drug deal is going to be. They rescue Mandy and together they storm the port for a final showdown.

There isn't as much fighting as there should be. Most of the fights end before they even begin. The best fight is Sherry Hon's fight at the warehouse. Later, when the three go to rescue Mandy, Mark Houghton and Sophia Crawford show up as guards. Crawford throws down with Sibelle Hu and her stunt double, while Houghton fights Despasquale. There's some decent choreography here, but I expected better. The finale starts off with lots of gunplay that makes you pine for the John Woo-lite that was The Replacement Killers. It then branches off into three fights: the totally useless Meng Xiang-Li against Harry's third-in-command; Sherry Hon vs. Harry's second-in-command; and Despasquale vs. Allen Lan. That last fight isn't bad; there's some good choreography early on, but is broken up by too much running. It's more interesting to see Allen Lan (who helped choreograph such films as The Death Games; Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger; and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate) fighting in front of the camera. He's actually quite good. But there's not enough of the good stuff to warrant a recommendation to anyone beyond the staunchest of HK action completists.

  

Beauty Investigator (1992) 
Chinese Title: 妙探雙嬌
Translation: Wonderful Detective Pair Jiao

Starring: Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Yukari Oshima, Gam Chi-Gei, Choi Jeong-Il, Sophia M. Crawford, Melvin Wong Gam-San, Billy Ching Sau-Yat, Peter Yang Kwan, Billy Chow Bei-Lei, Shum Wai, Chung Fat, Tai Bo
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Jackson Ng Yuk-Sue

 I divide the Girls 'n Guns genre into three eras: the Golden Age (1985-1990); the Middle Period (1991-1994) and the decline (1995 and onward). This one was made during the middle period (by our favorite independent kung fu director, Lee Tso Nam), when the films weren't even the moderate successes that the earlier films had been, but apparently made enough in the Pan-Asian Market to warrant decent budgets before things got *really* bad and cheap. Moon Lee is once again a cop who finds herself going undercover at a nightclub, this time as a hostess in order to bring down a sex maniac killer preying on hostesses. That eventually becomes a pointless subplot once Moon Lee and her partner set their sights on the club owner (superkicker Chuí Ying Jat), who has hired a Japanese hitwoman (Yukari Oshima) to off the other members (including Chung Fat) of his gun-running gang in order to be the Big Banana.

The movie was more of a comedy than Killer Angels was, which is best demonstrated by a chase sequence where Moon Lee and her partner are chasing down a motorcycle-riding Yukari Oshima. Moon Lee is firing her never-needs-to-be-reloaded shotgun at Oshima, only that she misses every shot. However, each blast from the gun is able to make cars explode and other metal objects catch fire! The fighting was choreographed by Jackson Ng (who worked on the One-Armed Swordsman remake What Price Survival and did co-choreographing duties on Magic Crystal) and it's pretty good. Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima aren't as flashy in their moves as they had been in the 80s, but they're fun to watch. Billy Chow shows up as a Japanese gangster in the end and throws some of his reliable kicks. Chuí Ying-Jat really steals the show with his flexible kicking in the fight. Sophia Crawford, stunt double for the Pink Ranger and Buffy, also appears as the villain's wife (in the English dub, she even gets a gratuitous shower scene!). It's a fun movie to be sure, but not quite the classic I was hoping for considering the cast.

 

Ultracop 2000 (1992) 
Chinese Title: 宇宙狙擊
Translation: Cosmic Sniper

Starring: Yukari Oshima, Phillip Ko Fei, Marcus Fok Wing-Fu, Melvin Wong Gam-San, Gabriel Romulo, Monsour Del Rosario, Bernardo Bernardo
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Phillip Ko Fei

Generally considered one of these absolute worst films in the Girls n' Guns genre...and I'm inclined to agree. Man, this movie sucked. A pair of aliens--one good, one bad--arrive on Earth. The latter, Zorbac (Lethal Panther 2's Gabriel Romulo), starts seeking out humans to consume (he uses magical Martian powers to suck out his victims' blood and spinal cords through cartoonish green optical effects). The former, a Martian policeman, is on the hunt and has wire-assisted sword and gun battles with Zorbac all over Manilla.

Meanwhile, a trio of policemen--Betty (Yukari Oshima), Tony (Monsour del Rosario, of The Trigonal: Fight for Justice), and Philip Ko Fei--are on the tail of Wong (Melvin Wong, of Righting Wrongs), a notorious arms dealer. Ko Fei is injured during a fake drug deal. Betty and Tony get involved with the Zorbac case when they are called to diffuse a suicide attempt by a gay guy (Bernardo Bernardo) who has just contracted HIV. We also learn that Zorbac can't absorb the life fluids from an HIV-positive person. Gunfights, swordfights, and all sorts of unfunny tomfoolery ensue.

Yeah, this movie feels like a collection of random scenes and homophobic vignettes that were probably unfunny in 1992. Action-wise, there is little to recommend the movie. Yukari Oshima's early fight scenes are short and not filmed well. She gets more action at the climax, fighting against mind-controlled baddies and Zorbac himself. Unfortunately, she is wired up as much as a then-contemporary wuxia film. Philip Ko Fei gets shot in an early gunfight and spends much of the film recovering in a hospital. He does do some nice work with a dao (broadsword) at the very end. There is a decent car chase/gunfight that ends with a silly domino-esque succession of exploding cars. There is also a budget reenactment of the warehouse raid from Hard Boiled, released that same year. But that said, the movie is just really stupid for its entire 80-minute running time. And instead of pulling the "it was all a dream" card, the movie turns out to be a visualization of a character reading a bad pulp novel.

Hard Boiled (1992)

Hard Boiled (1992)
Chinese Title: 辣手神探
Translation: Hot Hand Detective

 

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Phillip Chan Yan-Kin, Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Kwan Hoi-San, Stephen Tung Wai, Bowie Lam Bo-Yi, Bobby Au-Yeung Tsan-Wah, Ng Shui-Ting
Director: John Woo
Action Director: Philip Kwok

 

Early fall – 1997. My sister, Carolyn, and I go to the dollar(-seventy-five) theater on the Miracle Mile (i.e. Pacific Avenue) in Stockton, California. The double-bill for this Satuday? Two action movies starring Nicolas Cage: Con Air and Face/Off. And yes, it was a totally ass-kicking evening for my sister and I. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. At the time, I was beginning to collect Jackie Chan movies and was familiar with John Woo thanks to Hard Target. Meanwhile, Carolyn knew John Woo (at least in concept) because of Broken Arrow, which she watched while she went through a Christian Slater crush phase. This was the 1990s, after all.

I was so impressed with the scale and quality of the action in Face/Off that I decided it was time to watch John Woo’s Chinese movies. It was funny, the name came to my attention when Hard Target came out four years earlier. His name was touted on the trailers and TV spots, even though I had no idea who he actually was. At about the same time, I noticed that the ’99 Drive-In (Stockton had a Drive-In theater way out on the south side that I never actually went to before it closed down) started showing some of John Woo’s earlier films. I saw that the Drive-In was showing some movie called “The Killer,” but instead of Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cast, there were a bunch of Chinese names I’d never heard of. I was 11 at the time.

There was a video store right behind UOP (University of the Pacific) located on the corner of Alpine and Pacific Avenues. It wasn’t one of our main video stores, but we had a membership there and occasionally stopped there to rent movies, especially after Alpine Video (also located on Alpine Avenue, but a few miles away on the other side of UOP) closed down. One evening in my early Sophomore year in high school I went there, scoured the Action-Adventure and Foreign Movies sections, and found A Better Tomorrow. I rented it and absolutely loved it. Excellent film all around.

Not too long afterward, we were at the Blockbuster Video on the corner of Pershing and Robinhood (right behind Delta college) and I saw that they had a John Woo movie called Hard Boiled. I immediately picked it up and put in on the pile for my mom to rent. I saw that it starred Chow Yun-Fat, who had been in A Better Tomorrow. Now, bear in mind that I’m still a Hong Kong neophyte at this point, with most of my experience coming from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. In Leonard Maltin’s review of A Better Tomorrow, he praised Chow’s performance as a mob enforcer. For some reason, I equated Chow with Soon Ji-Ho, Ti Lung’s character. So when I popped Hard Boiled into the VCR, I was expected to see an action movie starring a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. I quickly figured out that Chow Yun-Fat was not the main character from A Better Tomorrow, but rather, his best friend who gets a fat hole blown in his head during the climax. Oh, okay.

A brief opening introduces us to Chow Yun-Fat’s character, a cop referred to by his colleagues as “Tequila.” He’s playing jazz clarinet at a jazz bar (owned by a former cop played by the director himself) and we see that the drummer in his band is his partner, Lung (Bowie Lam, of Doctor Vampire and Most Wanted). Tequila’s clarinet solo is played to the backdrop of the seedier parts of Hong Kong and newspapers informing us about the general surge in gun violence and crime overall. It certainly sounds like the U.S.A. circa 2022, if you ask me.

We then switch to a teahouse where Tequila and Lung are to break up an arms deal. The guns—Chinese models--themselves are hidden in the birdcages that the bad guys have brought. It doesn’t take long before the cops—disguised as waiters and customers—step in and a huge gunfight breaks out. The firefight is made even more complicated by the fact that a) the criminals hold absolutely no regard for human life and b) there’s a third-party gunman (Japanese actor Jun Kunimura, of Godzilla Final Wars and Tomie: Forbidden Fruit) who opens fire on the cops of his own accord. By the time the smoke clears, all of the criminals are dead. Lung is also dead. And the mysterious gunman is dead. Unfortunately for Tequila, the latter was an undercover policeman working under the supervision of Tequila’s boss, Chief Pang (Phillip Chan, of Bloodsport and Double Impact).

“Give the man a gun, and he’s Superman. Give him two, and he’s God.” 

We then meet a new set of characters. The first is a hitman named Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, of The Magic Crane and Seoul Raiders), who is in the employ of an older arms dealer named Uncle Hoi (Kwan Hoi-San, of the Project A films). Hoi’s major business rival is Johnny Wang (Untold Story’s Anthony Wong). Considering that this is early 90s Anthony Wong we’re talking about here, you can guess what kind of person Johnny Wang is: a complete and utter psychopath with (you guessed it) no regard for human life. In fact, it was his men who were involved in the teahouse incident. After Alan wastes one of Johnny’s new acquisitions—the hit is carried out in a surreal scene at a hospital—Johnny tries to woo Alan over to his side.

As this is happening, Tequila is mainly making himself a nuisance by harassing Johnny Wang in public (which almost gets him a bullet in his head for his troubles). However, when Johnny decides to put an end to Uncle Hoi’s hegemony in the market, Tequila gets word of it through his informant, Foxy (Stephen Tung Wai, of Once Upon a Time in China V). Johnny gives Alan a chance to prove his loyalty to him during a raid on Uncle Hoi’s warehouse, located in the deepest corners of the port. A huge three-way shootout (played in two parts) between Johnny’s killers, Uncle Hoi’s men, and one-man-army Tequila ensues, ending the lives of dozens of arms dealers. Tequila finds himself face to face with Alan at the end of the shootout. Although, Tequila is out of bullets, Alan is not. So, why doesn’t Alan kill him? Could it be that he’s an undercover cop, just like the one Tequila killed at the beginning?

Hard Boiled was John Woo’s last Hong Kong film before moving to Hollywood the following year. The handover of Hong Kong back to the People’s Republic of China was looming on the horizon and even with the Basic Law guaranteeing “business as usual,” nobody knew what was going to happen. It ended up taking more than twenty years, but the CCP found a way to circumvent the Basic Law with questionable national security laws, which have found a way to censor (and even retro-censor) movies. There was a lot of uncertainty, however, and some directors and actors went to Hollywood to test their fortunes. John Woo was the first of the lot—if you exclude Jackie Chan’s failed attempts in the 1980s—and he had a promising start with Hard Target. Woo hit his stride with his third American film, Face/Off, which was a hit with both critics and audiences alike. He reached the apex of his Hollywood career with his fourth effort, Mission Impossible II.

Woo followed it up with the earnest-but-failed WW2 film, Windtalkers. He closed out his Hollywood phase with the generic sci-fi action film Paycheck with Ben Affleck. Upon returning to Hong Kong, he went for the big one and made the 4+ hour Three Kingdoms epic Red Cliff, which was broken up into two movies. Woo’s subsequent films had mixed reviews, and his current project is a remake of his own masterpiece, The Killer, but with Western actors.

Hard Boiled was not as successful as some of Woo’s earlier Heroic Bloodshed films, although it was probably the biggest of those in terms of scope and has a strong fan following to this very day. It also got a video game sequel, Stranglehold, for the Playstation 3 in 2007. It is arguably his bloodiest film, with a body count surpassing 300—307 to be exact, according to Collider. That would make it the second highest number for a movie set in contemporary films, a mere three dead bodies behind Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse[1]. And this movie is absolutely vicious: at least a third of the people killed are innocent bystanders, including doctors, nurses and hospital patients, all of whom are mercilessly mowed down during protracted climax at the hospital. For the scale of the action alone—not to mention that this is all practical effects—this is easily one of the best action films of the 1990s, if not all time, in all of world cinema.

Chow Yun-Fat’s Tequila is the definition of ultra-cool. He routinely fights with his boss to his face and ignores orders when he knows he’s right—apparently the Chinese title, Lashou Shentan, was also the Chinese title for Dirty Harry. And once Tequila has a loaded gun in his hand, he will (to quote Ordell Robie) “absolutely, positive kill every motherfucker in the room.” And yet, he’s not a perfect person by any means. He makes professional mistakes, has a turbulent love life with his colleague (Teresa Mo, of Lady Super Cop) and is constantly on the verge of getting fired for misconduct. And yet, he gets results. Crime in Hong Kong was hitting record highs in the 1990s—maybe John Woo shouldn’t have inspired so many youth to join the Triads with A Better Tomorrow—and seems to reflect Woo’s desire for the police to simply blow shit up for the common good (nevermind that Woo claims to be a pacifist).

The deeper character is saved for Tony Leung’s Alan, an undercover cop who’s been on the inside for so long that he no longer remembers his own birthday. He knows that his path will take him into some unsavory places, especially as he tries to bring down a horrible excuse for a human being like Johnny Wang. But even so, Alan does make some friends among Uncle Hoi’s men. So when the mission ultimately requires him to betray them, it takes its emotional toll on him the same way it would had he been a normal Triad betraying and murdering his old friends. It is thanks to Tequila’s constant support—despite their tense relationship—that he able to face his demons as he takes on Wang’s army during the last half of the film. This is film is obviously a template for his lauded role in Andrew Lau’s award-winning Infernal Affairs.

The rest of the actors all do credible jobs with their material. Phillip Chan was a former policeman before entering the movie industry and by this point, could play a police captain in his sleep. Teresa Mo was a respected comic actress and makes her limited role as Madam Chang work—she has a hard time getting along with Tequila at this point, but still respects his work as a cop and even calls out Chief Pang for favoring Alan over him. There is one scene where she callously shoots down a terrorist who slaps her, which was copied by Woo the following year in Hard Target. Stealing the show is Anthony Wong with his unhinged, but not quite over-the-top, performance as the crazy Johnny Wang. My favorite moment with him is when he justifies (to both himself and his men) waging an all-out war with the cops in the middle of a friggin’ hospital: “They only have .38s.” [Scoffs to the point of spitting]

Former Venom Mob trope member Phillip Kwok, who also plays the honorable assassin Mad Dog, orchestrated the big set pieces here. Hard Boiled is undoubtedly Kwok’s best work as an action director following the dissolution of the Venom Mob circa 1983. There are three major set pieces, with a couple of smaller ones, too. The movie opens with the infamous teahouse fight, which has Chow Yun-Fat and his team jumping over and ducking under tables while trading shots with arms dealers, while the undercover policeman guy just sprays everybody with bullets from his Uzi. This ends with the memorable scene of Chow Yun-Fat, covered in flour, pins the assassin to the ground with his gun, spits out his toothpick, and pulls the trigger. In a split second, his white face is covered with blood.

While the teahouse fight was a great example of a mounting a bloody gun battle in a closed space, the raid on Uncle Hoi’s arsenal (and Tequila’s subsequent raid on Johnny’s men) is a more open fight. The warehouse in which Hoi’s men are loading their guns into shipping containers is quite spacious, giving Johnny’s top enforcers (led by Mad Dog) lots of room to drive around on motorcycles and slaughter people wholesale with Uzis and Mac-10s. I’m pretty sure that the use of motorcycles in the climax of Hard Target was inspired by this sequence. Then Tequila goes all Rambo on everbody with an HK Submachine gun and a 12-gauge shotgun whose cartridges must have been loaded with nitroglycerin pellets, judging by the explosions they cause. The sight of Chow Yun-Fat blowing up motorcycles in mid-air made my 15-year-old brain explode back in the day.

The characters start converging on the hospital at around the hour mark, which is where the film spends the rest of its running time. After a few brief skirmishes between our heroes and the bad guys, there’s an intense bout of fisticuffs between Tony Leung, Chow Yun-Fat and Philip Kwok, set inside the villains’ arsenal. Upon their escape from the room, the film kicks into high-gear and never stops for a moment. My favorite single moment has Chow Yun-Fat sliding across the floor of the hospital lobby on his knees before taking out two bad guys with  a single shotgun blast. Bad. Ass. That scene is quickly followed by popular single tracking-shot gunfight as Alan and Tequila work their way through the halls of the hospital as they look for Johnny. Then there’s an absolutely insane rematch between the good guys and Mad Dog, but in this case, it’s a highly-choreographed gunfight, with them unloading hundreds of rounds at each other—Mad Dog is armed with an M-16 with a grenade launcher in this segment. And the madness does not end after that. This film is just absolutely berserk!

Hollywood has often tried to mimic the sheer insanity of Hard Boiled, but never quite made it there. Even John Woo himself never quite recaptured the emotions of this film’s action, and he was becoming a caricature of himself by the time he got to Mission Impossible II. The two Expendables films got the body count down, but were missing the style. Shoot’em Up came close, but was a bit silly for its own good. The Matrix and Mr. and Mrs. Smith had some great gunfights, but felt sanitized on the whole. Hard Boiled is where it’s at.

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[1] - The movies that beat those two were all historical or fantasy films with large-scale battle sequences, like Troy; The Last Samurai; and the Lord of the Rings movies.

Twin Dragons (1992)

Twin Dragons (1992)
Aka: Brother vs. Brother
Chinese Title: 雙龍會
Translation: Double Dragon Club

 

Starring: Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Nina Li Chi, Teddy Robin Kwan, James Wong Jim, Sylvia Chang Ai-Chia, Kirk Wong Chi-Keung, David Chiang Da-Wei, Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting, Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei
Director: Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam
Action Directors: Yuen Woo-Ping, Stephen Tung Wai, Tony Leung Siu-Hung, Tsui Siu-Ming, Chris Lee, Jackie Chan

In Clyde Gentry’s Jackie Chan: Inside the Dragon, Gentry places his remarks about this movie in the chapter reserved for “Jackie’s other children.” That expression is used to describe the Jackie Chan movies that, up until 1997, had been directed by others who didn’t quite share Jackie’s approach to moviemaking. That would include Gordon Chan (Thunderbolt), Wong Jing (City Hunter) and Kirk Wong (Crime Story). Gentry more or less summed up the chapter by stating that Chan himself hated all these films, although he showed a bit of ambivalence toward Drunken Master II (directed by Lau Kar-Leung). The criticism with this particular movie is that despite having two critically-acclaimed directors running show—Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam—neither of the men’s style really show through. Instead, it feels like a standard Jackie Chan action comedy whose detours into goofiness rival the dumbest moments of My Lucky Star.

There is a certain reason for Twin Dragons feeling like less of a movie than usual. That is that it was meant as a fundraiser for the Hong Kong Director’s Guild, specifically to get said organization its own office. Despite the moving making 33 million HKD at the time—placing it at #9 for that year in a particularly strong year for domestic films—apparently the Director’s Guild didn’t get their office built. In any case, it is mainly a disparate collection of action scenes and sight gags, held together by a thin story and tinge of romance.

I came across this some time during my junior year in high school, circa 1999. I had stopped by the S-Mart Supermarket located behind my school and was just looking around when I noticed a bargain bin full of VHS tapes. Lying right on top of the pile of tapes was Twin Dragons, priced at $9.99. I don’t even remember why I was even at the market. I saw that and stroked my chin. I didn’t buy it immediately, but after re-reading Clyde Gentry’s remarks on the film, I went to S-Mart again the following Friday after school and bought it with my lunch money.

Now, the funny part is that a couple of months after I bought this, Dimension Films released this with an all-new dub—presumably with Jackie Chan dubbing himself—to American theaters. Although by this point, I was making it a point to support Asian stars in whatever they could get released in the States, I decided to not do that with this one. Instead, I got the gang together at my friend Peter’s house and we just watched my VHS (which had the international dub, plus 15 minutes of footage not to be seen in the new release). The movie only made 8.3 million dollars in the US and Canada (losing about 40 dollars in revenue because I didn’t take my friends to see it), but was successful in Pan-Asian markets, as Chan films were wont to be at the time.

I’ll forego my usual semi-detailed plot synopsis, both because I’m pretty sure my base has already seen it and because trying to sum up the “story” is a bit of thankless task. Needless to say, Chan plays a dual role as renown pianist, John Ma, and a kung fu-fighting car mechanic, Boomer. The latter has a run-in with the local Triads and as that problem spirals out of control, John is sucked into it as well. There is also a subplot in which John falls for Barbara (Maggie Cheung), a karaoke singer whom Boomer’s friend, Tyson (Teddy Robin Kwan) already has the hots for. Meanwhile, a series of mishaps involving mistaken identity places Boomer in bed with Tammy (Nina Li Chi), a hot young lady whose father is trying to marry her off to John for his own benefit.

Although the real-life Jackie Chan has never been a squeaky-clean guy, he always does a good job at playing that sort of role in his movies. At the very least, he’s a regular, likable Joe who happens to have awesome acrobatic kung fu abilities. Playing dual roles allows him to play up to that good boy image while simultaneously playing against type in the form of Boomer. Boomer is a working-class fellow with a ponytail, a smoking habit, and a penchant for getting into trouble with the wrong people. Early dialog suggests that he’s also active on the illegal driving circuit, which comes up later in the film, albeit not in the way one might initially imagine. As I understand it, Armour of God (1987) featured Jackie Chan’s first love scene, which he admitted was even scarier to him than almost dying. Twin Dragons would thus feature his second love scene, although it’s quick and played mainly for laughs. Later on, Nina Li drops her towel in front of John before getting into a bathtub with him. In other words, Jackie presumably got to see what Jet Li was seeing at that time. So, would that make Jackie Chan and Jet Li eskimo brothers?

Maggie Cheung plays the fourth side of the bizarre love “rectangle.” Despite Tyson’s attempt to “stake a claim” on her Barbara character, she initially falls for Boomer. That makes sense, as one is a martial arts dynamo and the other is an annoying klutz—I’m pretty sure 9 out of 10 people will agree that Teddy Robbin’s character is the low point of this movie. However, after meeting John (despite thinking he’s Boomer), she falls for him instead. What I like about this movie is that it didn’t make Maggie Cheung the nagging (or angry or concerned) girlfriend that the Police Story movies made her. She is given a meatier role than her recurring role as May in those films.

Villainy is provided by several actors. Initially, the Triad boss is Yung, played by actor-director Alfred Cheung. As a director—most of the cast are veteran HK directors—Cheung is best known for the Her Fatal Ways series[1]. Interestingly enough, Boss Yung is forgotten about some 30 minutes in after a goofy sight gag involving a mannequin bouncing back and forth against two vehicles. His cronies, played Shaw brothers veteran Johnny Wang Lung-Wei[2] and actor-director-producer Guy Lai[3], then pick up the slack. Then wait! In the last act, we learn that Boss Yung (who has since disappeared from the script) has a boss, played by director Kirk Wong[4]. Kirk Wong’s character was the same guy who caused the separation of the Ma twins at the beginning of the film. How coincidental is it for him to be the head of the same Triad some 27 years later!

As there are dozens of directors in supporting roles and cameos throughout, it comes without surprise that there are a half dozen action directors attributed to Twin Dragons, too. And it goes without saying that these men also had varying experiences as movie directors, too. Yuen Woo-Ping needs no introduction, having directed a number of classic old school movies and modern-day action films. Stephen Tung Wai had been working as an action director since the late 70s, and had directed his first movie, the supernatural action film Magic Cop, a couple of years earlier. Chris Lee, a former Sing Ga Ban member, had started his directing career the year before with Queen’s High. Tony Leung Siu-Hung, brother of Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, was a dependable B-list choreographer with A-grade potential, and had directed at least one movie by this point. Finally, Tsui Siu-Ming was a seasoned director, directing crazy stunt action fests like Mirage and Bury Me High.

Despite the combined talent of these men, much like the collaboration of Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, there isn’t a whole lot of their individual styles that show through in the fights. It’s mainly Jackie Chan doing what Jackie Chan does best. An early fight at a karaoke club has some nice kicks and wince-inducing use of glass panes, including Wang Lung-Wei breaking a pane over Jackie’s back. A short fight against Tammy’s boyfriend, played by Shaw Brothers stuntman-turned director Jamie Luk[5], is played for laughs, although Chan once more does some nice kicks. After the first set piece, the fighting is turned down until the 15-minute climax, set at a car-testing center. In the meantime, there is a boat chase and a well-done car chase, full of nice car stunts and general vehicular mayhem.

The big climax is vintage Jackie Chan, complete with great martial arts and some neat stuntwork from Chan the man. The stunts include running onto a moving car as it races toward him. Some versions show the stunt at regular speed, while others show it in both slow motion and regular speed. Another stunt has Chan barely jumping out of the way as a car smashes against a wall behind him as part of a crash test. In another display of agility and timing, Chan rolls under a car and out the other side as the villains kick out the jacks holding it up, narrowly missing Chan on both sides. The first part of the climax, which involves a series of mistaken identity gags in a carwash room and heating room of the factor, goes on a bit long. But once they’re in the garage, there’s some neat stuff on display. But to get there, there is a lot of silliness that you’ll have to wade through. Is it worth the trip? Or did Dimension films have the right idea in streamlining the whole affair? You be the judge.

  

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[1] - Cheung’s biggest hit was All’s Well, End’s Well ’97, which made more than 40 million HKD and came in at #3 at the domestic box office that year.

[2] - By this point, Wang had also established himself as a director, making brutal action films like The Angry Ranger; Widow Warriors; and City Warriors.

[3] - Lai’s most successful film as director was Sister Cupid, starring Maggie Cheung.

[4] - Kirk Wong was known for his gritty and brutal action films, like Crime Story and Organized Crime and Triad Bureau. In Hollywood, he directed the action-comedy The Big Hit (1998) and was originally slated to direct the project that became Snakes on a Plane.

[5] - Luk is best known for directing the cult film Robotrix. His most successful film, however, was the Carol “Dodo” Cheng ghost-comedy Guests in the House.