Zui jia pai dang 3: Nu huang mi ling

The second sequel to Hong Kong's Aces Go Places, it is a story about King Kong (Samuel Hui), while vacationing in Paris, being kidnapped by a British agent called James (Jean Mersant), who wants to recover one of the stolen crown jewels, the Star of Fortune, supposedly at the request of the Queen of England. King Kong attempts to steal the jewel at the Hong Kong Police Headquarters without his partner-in-crime, Detective Albert "Baldy" Au (Karl Maka), knowing.

Like the previous movie, the plot is fast-paced and full of adventure. the story has slightly less corny jokes and silly action than the previous movie, and incorporates some slick and daring cross-culture references, like the appearance of James Bond villain actor Richard Kiel and Mission Impossible actor Richard Graves. There are also characters named James Bond and Oddjob in the movie - obvious references to 007 films. King Kong trying to pull off a heist while not betraying his partners is a pretty captivating plot.

There is wild action in abundance, but still doesn't quite capture the fun of the original film. Still, it's worth a watch.

Grade B-

I watched the Mad Missions in order 1, 2, 3 (4 will be next). The first confused me so much that I stopped the viewing and restarted the next day. The second stunned me so much that I re-watched it the same evening. And now this one..

It is different, with another director, and a much higher budget, it appears. It is still silly, but seems to have grown up and dropped most of the boys' toys the first two featured.

But I also noticed how with experience one sees a film differently. Had I watched it without context, I might have thought, "that hairy-beardy police chief is very unconvincing". But what I thought was, "Hey, there's Tsui Hark again, the FBI loonie from #2". And soon to find out he's also the director of this piece. With experience, one starts to feel as part of the family of Sam Hul, Carl Maka, Sylvia Chang (why, I even was at their wedding) ...

Again there were cute details that made me laugh out loud. Consider a high security access system that plays Tic-Tac-Toe (and can be cheated with extra hardware). There's a glimpse of that old boy's humor again.

The German CinePlus DVD has the English soundtrack for which I'm very grateful (the German dub added excess silliness). And, if you care to spend another half-hour, a very rich set of cut scenes (some adding new content to the plot, some just out-takes). Silent (just with the title music), but ample proof how much hard work goes into making such a film - innumerable retries of the fight at the Seine, or just the scene in Bond Street which starts at street level and then pans up to a window.

I must say I have now acquired the Zuijia Paidang taste, and look forward for #4 now :)

In this third outing of the series, King Kong is hired by some people who say they work for the Queen of England. They claim that some jewelry from the crown has been stolen, and they want King Kong to steal it back. But things are not quite what they seem, and King Kong and Baldy are in trouble again.

Compared to the first two movies in the series this is the worst, it's not quite as action-packed as the others, but relies more on humour, which gets kind of stupid after a while. Maka, who plays Baldy, sets new records in overacting, and the Bond-inspired characters are quite lame.

Skip this one, and proceed directly to the next, which is better (Ringo Lam is the king).

For the most part, this is pretty entertaining.But it has one delightfully visually inventive robbery sequence featuring among other things santa claus's on jet packs, and motorcycles flying through the air. If only for that sequence alone, the movie is worth watching.

The third Mad Mission movie - a very high paced slapstick parody of the James Bond and other spy movies with some Asian influences - is probably my favourite one of the entire series. Some silly toys of the first two movies have disappeared, the pace is much higher in this movie because of extremely interesting action scenes like on the Eiffel Tower and the jokes are even funnier than before and add a hilarious slapstick style to the movie for example when Samuel Hui plays Tic Tac Toe with cheats in a high secured area or when Carl Maka gets seduced and cheated in the most ridiculous way possible by his friend and a beautiful woman in a restaurant. A very special gem in this movie are the exotic locations for example in Paris and the appearances of some actors of the James Bond movies like Richard Kiel. Only the later Mission:Impossible star Peter Graves is awful and boring in this very entertaining flick filled with action and absurd humour. One can also see that the budget was higher than in the first two movies and most of the action scenes are really well executed.

The only negative point is that the quality of the special effects is very low. You can for example easily see strings when Samuel Hui uses his flight machine to escape after a robbery or when he is fighting in the submarine. You can also see that plastic models of ships or planes are used instead of real material. Another negative fact is that the dubbed versions are really awful.

But those details and this lack of professionalism doesn't change anything concerning the fact that this movie is still very entertaining over twenty-five years after its creation even if some effects, ideas and the story line are very old fashioned but at least in a charming and nostalgic way. I have seen this movie at least four times now and it is still entertaining and memorable in my opinion. So, if you are looking for a very funny and high paced parody of the James Bond and other spy movies with some charming characters, this movie is the perfect choice for you and it is also a good introduction to the whole Mad Mission universe in my opinion. That's why I can highly recommend this movie to anyone that likes action or comedy movies.