Sang gong kei bing

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.

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.

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.

When I came across this film on IMDb I found the comments here to be very positive, portraying the film as one of the milestones of Hong Kong action cinema. With these glowing reviews I decided to make a "blind buy" purchase and order it on DVD through an online retailer. It was only $8.00 and I figure it was worth the gamble, especially since I had such admiring reviews to back me up. This aura of positive reviews, however, made me ask the question, "If this film is so essential to Hong Kong cinema, why hasn't anyone seen it? Or better yet, why is it completely unknown?" After I received my DVD and watched it, I found out.

The film is rather dull in all accounts. The film tries to build back story for the characters in the beginning of the film, but it only spends approximately ten minutes here before thrusting the characters into a clichéd action story. Ten minutes isn't enough time to build characters, especially when there is about six characters to develop.

And the film doesn't spend time on their relationships or internal psyches throughout the rest of the film. Instead, it concentrates on a fumbled heist, a few murders, torture, and whorehouses, totally devoid of any human emotion.

And the acting doesn't doesn't help in any way either. Most of the characters seem to be assigned one emotion and each must play that emotion to the fullest. As a result we witness over-the-top and occasionally irritating performances (some of the characters seems to be be on the verge of tears every time they are in a mess, causing the audience to groan at their complaining and constant whining).

As for that narrative portion of the film, it is greatly unfocused. The film is more of a culmination of scenes rather than a solid plot thread and the audience becomes confused trying to figure out how these scenes are related.

Also, the film places focus on irrelevant and unimportant scenes that do not further the story nor the development of the characters, such as the time spent on scenes at the whorehouse. These scenes seem pointless since they merely show the sexual intercourse between the men and prostitutes and do not add any commentary on anything.

However, the film does contain one noteworthy merit and that is the final shoot out that takes place in the back alleys of Hong Kong.

The sequence lasts about ten minutes and is indeed well executed. Here, the fugitives are running away from what appears to be an unending force of police officers through a labyrinth of hallways. The narrow passages and maze-like structure reflects the claustrophobic nature the characters are feeling and as more and more officers propagate within this tight locations, the fugitives are squeezed into a smaller and smaller area until they must make a final stand.

However, this scene is only well made on a technical level. Since the characters and story are so underdeveloped, we don't really care what the results of the shootout will be. Instead, the viewer will take joy in the sequence on a purely visual level, making the scene an experience but not a satisfying dénouement.

I don't see how this could possibly be a cornerstone of Hong Kong cinema when it has been so sloppily made. Most likely the film has simply received a small cult following thanks in part to the well executed final sequence, and thus have been over-praised in some areas.

The film isn't a totally lost, but it really isn't worth seeing. I would recommend this to only those who are Hong Kong Action (Heroic Bloodshed, Gun-fu, Bullet Ballet) completests, and even then it would only be to see that final scene.

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.