Le Bras armé de la loi

No pun intended - the movie is based (loosely I suppose) on a true story or rather incident(s). Make of this what you will of course. I have watched my fair share of Hong Kong movies, this or the rest of the "series" was not amongst them, until the other day. And I have mixed feelings about this to say the least.

We get a few unlikely "heroes" (more like villains, which makes the whole things weird with no one really to root for) ... and their quest after crossing the border (Hong Kong was not really a part of China back then - it belonged to Great Britain - I don't have the specifics, but you can read up on it, if you are interested) ... and they have to earn money ... first a prison break, then a border break ... then a robbery and hit job ... so many things ... and so many crazy stunts. There is a scene (to name one) where one character runs into a car ... and I am certain they did not have permissions to shoot that scene on the road ... or that the car was a stunt driver ... the days of rebellion ... must have been nice (or not).

Actually one of the makers admitted (on the release by 88 Films), that they did not have any permission or that people actually thought what was happening was real ... and that if police was near them (the real one), they may have shot at them ... again this is insane to a degree - well you have to watch it to believe it.

Some amazing stunts, characters that are over the top ... and a few jokes here and there. With quite the excessive ending ... like it or not ... or maybe you don't even care. Still has to be believed and seen.

Long Arm Of The Law is a film I highly recommended to anyone who likes gangsters films. Thought the concept is simple the storytelling is very well told and kept me fat and happy. The tone is very dark although at times there is some goofy $#!+ like this guy forcing a woman to blow him at gun point or when the gangsters shot this cop and he fell onto the ice ring and blood splattered. I don't know. I found it funny. Though it is mainly a crime thriller, it does have some very bloody violent action. The final 20 or so minutes of the film is f#@$ing awesome. Hard to acquire, but if you can it is well worth it.

In this first (and best) of a four-part film series a group of men from the mainland illegally enters Hong Kong and soon forms a 'Big Circle' triad gang. It doesn't take long till the police is hot on their trail which inevitably leads to a final shootout. This takes place in the infamous 'Walled City' which was razed to the ground a few months later in real life. So this film is the last chance to behold the labyrinthic chaos of people, goods, narrow alleys and illegality that was the 'Walled City'. If you, like me, prefer the coarse, mangy and dirty Hong Kong action-movies of the 80s over the high-gloss, elegant movies of the 90s, this one's for you.

Sheng Gang Qi Bing : Sheng means province. It indicated Guangtong province in China. Gang means Hong Kong. Qi means flag. It indicated the 5-star flag which is the national flag of China. Bing means soldier.

The better tile for this movie might be "The Bannerman from China".

But it has a strange English title called "Long Arm Of The Law".

I have watched this movie when I was a kid in local theater. It was the first gangster movie in HK brought some foreign elements from China. The banner man from China entered HK illegally. They were the veteran of People Liberation Army of China but became robbers and gangsters in HK. They are different from local gangsters in HK and show more merciless and disciplinary. But their minds are always simple and pure. They just want to gain some money for their family or lovers in China.

This is the film from which Tarantino copied the idea of mutilating someone's ear for a bit of a shocker effect. The film chronicles the career of the "O gang", a bunch of Mainland Chinese who hope to make some superfast bucks during a few days of illegal stay in the crown colony.

Things start to go in the wrong direction for them even before they can cross the border, however and the gang makes a conscious effort to defeat the odds through camaraderie and loyalty. They loudly profess their love of freedom and one wonders if these are in fact hardened criminals or clueless country potatoes. They definitely are clueless towards their impending downward spiral that continues with a double cross from a local mobster, while they have to wait for their targeted jewelery shop to re-open after someone else's robbery.

This film has it all, gratuitous violence that was all but impossible for western cinema back then. Very funny and absurd tales of country boys vs the HK redlight district. Now historic Hong Kong footage from the walled city ghetto, where the gang takes refuge in an underground clinic and is drawn into a superbly staged final shootout.

A classic tale of male and criminal self-destruction, told in an early superlow-budget HK film from a bygone era.