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(1988) Gunmen (In Chinese with English subtitles) CRIME HISTORICAL DRAMA ACTION

Effective Chinese style and direction of Brian DePalma's "The Untouchables" directed by Kirk Wong (Rock n' Roll Cop; Crime Story) which deals with the corruption that existed amongst the police force during the 1930's Opium Wars. Stars Tony Leung Ka-Fei as Captain Ding Chun-Be, Waise Lee as Ching, and Adam Cheung as Haye, the ending is quite original and a knockout which has to be seen to believe that involves a 5 year old little girl pointing a gun- a controversial scene that can stay in your mind for many years!.

Some main features are adapted by other western movies. Horse-riding shooters are found in Walter Hill's Long Riders and the main plot seems to be originated from Brian De Palma's Untouchables. However, some original technologies such as sounds and camera works are recognizable, which deny other deficiencies such as unreal setting of modern China.

Kirk Wong has probably the darkest vision of any Hong Kong director working on crime thrillers; even Ringo Lam desperately clings to some hope that heroes actually exist and will prevail. But Wong's heroes are really very commonplace men, with all the faults and flaws we can expect of them, while his villains are as vicious as nay we could imagine. The high point of Wong's career has been "Crime Story", the only Jackie Chan film that can actually be considered depressing.

Gunmen is a very dark tale of Shanghai "after the Chinese civil war", and I put that in quotes because it is never clear whether this is directly after the intra-party strife between two Nationalist factions during the twenties and thirties, or the revolution of Mao tse Tung that ended in 1949. The identifiers that would clarify this (references to the Communist party) are entirely missing, and intentionally so; Wong doesn't want us to see this story in those terms, but rather in terms of cultural tensions that somehow run deeper than economic politics or historical theories. It is exactly this particularity - of people rather than parties - that drives the characters towards almost certain destruction.

Politics aside, if what the viewer wants is a tense, brutal, violent gunplay crime film, look no farther. Just don't expect a happy ending.

Gunmen is one of the titles I wanted to watch for quite some time but couldn't due to the copy not having English subtitles. I was expecting a Hong Kong action movie with guns blazing (hence the name Gunmen) but I was greatly disappointed. First of all everyone might disagree with me but I cannot stand Tony Leung as the lead actor. I mean he was OK in movies like Prison on Fire and Election but he sucks in this one. The story is so-so as the tale of a man returning home after civil war and becoming a detective. As for Elvis Tsui he had a good performance but I cannot say the same for Waise Lee. The action was OK but do not expect to watch a John Woo movie that takes place in the 1920's