Ma qiao fei long

Vincent Zhao is a professional gambler who wants to acquire a greencard so that he can go to Hong Kong. He has to find someone to marry him so that he can get the card. Enter Josephine Siao, who plays a cop with a gambling addiction. Siao is one of my favorite actresses so it was a joy to see her with a good role. It's a good movie, and there are some really nice fights. Zhao gets to show off in a few scenes, and the final fight with Ken Lo is really cool. Everyone who has seen Jackie Chan's Drunken Master 2 knows that Ken Lo is the man, and he proves it once again here. He has been in a lot of movies over the past 6 or 7 years, but I haven't seen a fight scene from him in quite a awhile, so I had to rewatch my VCD of Mahjong Dragon to feed the Ken Lo craving I was having. This movie is darker than most Hong Kong fighting movies that were coming out at the time, and holds up as a good movie on repeated viewings. If you like good action movies, then be sure to check this out if you get a chance. You won't be disappointed.

I have the Vietnamese version, so it's really poorly dubbed, but the subtitles are there. But the plot is so tedious that I didn't really care during the last 30 minutes. There's a fight between Chu Man Cheuk and Ken Lo that's decent, yet wire assisted, but besides that there's nothing really satisfying. Ken Lo plays almost no role and I bet had he had more time it could have been worthwhile.

What could have been a rather mundane, forgettable gambling/kung-fu movie is saved by a brilliant comic performance from Josephine Siao. Her timing, facial expressions, and deadpan delivery as a down-on-her-luck Hong Kong police woman are a joy, making Mahjong Dragon into an often hilarious comedy.