Flying Dagger

Hmmm what can I say? This is one of those Hong Kong movies which starts of fairly normal and then spirals off into silliness. Is it just me or has just about every Hong Kong movie some reference/joke to urine in it? Can't say much about the acting, most characters were too busy flying around to have much dialog. The story is a simple one. The jokes are what makes this movie "special". A few subjects: urine, S & M, a wandering hand and farts(as a weapon). The martial arts in this movie are okay, but nothing special. Lots of wire-fu. All in all good fun if you're feeling silly.

Flying Dagger (1993 - not to be confused with the recent House of Flying Daggers) is a typical Hong Kong crowd-pleaser of a low-brow comedy. Yes, there are bits of toilet humor, but considering the effective entertainment value of the movie as a whole, I can look past that. It is a fun, good-natured high-speed kung fu romp, and there's literally never a dull moment. People are flying all over the place, doing battle physically and verbally, fighting outrageous villains (like "Die First", who dies first, "Die Hard", who dies after a long fight, and "Never Die", who... well, you get the idea!) and just generally cavorting. I watched this movie in the middle of the night, needing some fast-paced happy-go-lucky action to keep me awake, and you can bet this movie did the trick!

The story? Let me see - a male hero team of two meets a female hero team of two (gradually, of course, falling in love with each other), and team up to fight a husband-wife team of good-natured thieves (who live in a kind of Bat-cave), but all of them clear up the misunderstanding and join forces to fight some relatively undefined bad guys in the end (also joined by an autonomous helping hand - namely the severed one of "Never Die"!). The story is there, but it really isn't terribly important. But it's great fun. A high-spirited comedy with a great cast, well worth your time.

The female hero team - sisters, actually - consists of two of my favorite Asian actresses, the beautiful and exotic Man Cheung, and the cute and cuddly Gloria Yip. They both demonstrate a great aptitude for comedy here, and might have carried the entire movie on their own. But they are actually out-shone by the wacky husband-wife team, who consists of Nine-Tailed Fox, played by Jacky Cheung, and Flying Cat, played by Maggie Cheung (and no, none of all these Cheungs are related). They are both absolutely great. This is actually the first time I've seen Jacky Cheung, and I was struck by how much he resembles Jackie Chan. Still, he's a good actor and kung fu fighter in his own right.

8 out of 10.

This is silly. Lots of visual gags and slapstick - some of which fall flat, but enough of which are genuinely funny to make this an entertaining romp. There are plenty of side-swipes at martial arts movie cliches; although at times the farce does get out of hand and descends into Benny Hill territory. Funny film. 7/10.

FLYING DAGGER (1993) succeeds where other Hong Kong wire-fu comedies failed (e.g. HANDSOME SIBLINGS, ROYAL TRAMP I & II) and creates an exciting and consistently funny fantasy with imaginative action scenes, well-developed gags, attractive romantic entanglements, and expert effects. The storyline creates enough dramatic tension to keep viewers engaged throughout, yet the tone is light enough to allow for an abundance of gags to arise naturally from the action and for the actors to clearly have a great deal of fun with their roles.

The plot has to do with the efforts of two teams of bounty hunters to track down and capture the male-female pair of wanted criminals, Nine-Tails Fox and Flying Cat. The rival bounty hunters--the male team of Big Dagger and Little Dagger, and the female team of Big Bewitchment and Little Bewitchment--wind up pairing off romantically, the `Big' partners with each other, and the `Little'-younger-- partners pairing off as well. They soon join forces to catch the criminals who, in turn, side with the bounty hunters when it's determined the wanted parties have been framed by Master Lui, the warlord who had hired Big and Little Dagger in the first place. The heroes travel to a series of inns, where they get into various fights and meet up with an ally or two, culminating in a big battle with Master Lui and his pair of super-powered henchmen.

There are a lot of sophisticated special effects for a film of this type, including the creation of a disembodied hand (recalling Thing from the Addams Family films) which at first antagonizes the heroes and then joins them to help out. (The hand was chopped off a villain named Never Die.) The gags are plentiful but all make dramatic sense and seem to have been thought out ahead of time rather than made up on the spot, which so often seems to be the case with HK comedies. Flying Cat's `Replay Machine' is especially clever.

The action scenes, directed by Ching Siu Tung (CHINESE GHOST STORY, SWORDSMAN II), are all exciting and enjoyable. There may not be much actual kung fu, but there are a lot of swirling garments and fabrics and breakaway walls and rooftops. Also, Nine-Tails Fox, really does have a tail the length of nine fox tails-and uses it to great effect--and Flying Cat really fights like a flying cat.

The attractively-photographed cast is a Hong Kong fan's delight, with action star Tony Leung Ka Fai (DRAGON INN) proving himself equally adept at comedy and the beautiful and versatile Sharla Cheung Man (ROYAL TRAMP) delightful as his rival/lover. Top HK stars Jacky Cheung and Maggie Cheung are both very funny as Nine-Tails Fox and Flying Cat and participate fully in the action scenes. (Fans of Maggie will never forget her Flying Cat routine here.) As the exceedingly cute younger couple, Jimmy Lin and the adorable Gloria Yip bring a high degree of youthful charm to the film. Comic actor Ng Man Tat pops up as a sympathetic innkeeper. Kung fu great Lo Lieh makes a cameo appearance as `Death in One Bout.'

The film was directed by Chu Yin Ping and scripted by Wong Jing, whose own directorial efforts tend to be more slapdash than this. The cinematography, production design and music are all top-notch. This is an extremely good-looking and -sounding film and one that warrants multiple viewings.

Kung fu fans seeking stunning, well choreographed displays of martial arts prowess are advised to look elsewhere for their fix: Flying Dagger may feature endless scenes of combat, but with bags of wire-assisted Wuxia-style leaping, terribly confusing direction and editing, and an abundance of swirling mist, 'stylish' lighting, and flapping cloth (surely fighting with such large sleeves must be a handicap!), this film ends up disappointing in the action stakes.

Those looking for a large dose of crazy Asian lunacy, however, have come to the right place: this film is totally bonkers! Tony Leung and Jimmy Lin play The Dagger Brothers, a pair of bounty hunters who team up with the beautiful Bewitchment sisters (Sharla Cheung and the VERY cute Gloria Yip) in order to try and catch wanted criminal Nine-Tails Fox (Jacky Cheung), a formidable foe, particularly when teamed in combat with his feisty wife Flying Cat (Maggie Cheung).

Battling a variety of foes on the way (all of whom have names that accurately describe their special abilities), the brothers eventually fall for the sisters. But the course of true love never runs smooth—particularly when you're confronted by ninjas, a disembodied hand, cat-women, a singing gay kung fu master, and trans-sexual Japanese warriors armed with poisonous lips.

Westerners au fait with Chinese humour will not be at all surprised to find that Flying Dagger contains a plethora of fart jokes, 'carry-on' style smut, and silly slapstick (and the odd joke requiring people to drink urine!), some of which is funny, but most of which is not.

Still, this star-packed slice of extreme silliness is worth seeing purely so that one can claim to have seen a film in which the gorgeous Maggie Cheung tears through treetops screeching like a possessed cat.