Zhi fa wei long

At first, this film seems amateurish and silly. In fact, some of the early dialogue is laughably simplistic. Then, something strange happens. It starts to grow on you. The concept is a tried and true one: a couple of Hong Kong cops (played by Robin Shou and Yukari Oshima) have to escort a notorious bad guy back to his homeland (The Philippines). Before they know it, the bad guy has escaped custody and the Philippine authorities just want the Hong Kong cops to go back home. The Hong Kong cops refuse (of course) and vow not to leave the country until the bad guy has been apprehended. The Philippine authorities assign our Hong Kong heroes a babysitter (a reluctant Filipino cop) and before you can say, "BLACK RAIN," the babysitter becomes a co-conspirator and they all take on the bad guys. While there are far better films revolving around this concept, this one has plenty of bells and whistles. My favorite aspect of the film is a pair of silent assassins (one man, one woman) who appear to be completely emotionless and cock each other's weapons with their feet and reload each other's guns after a rampage. Another high point is a particularly scrappy Filipino midget with a big attitude. There are a few impressive fist fights and even a moment or two of real emotion, but for the most part, it's just a cheesy little fun film that hardcore Hong Kong film fans will probably get a kick out of (pun intended).

This Philip Ko directed Hong Kong, actioner feels very much like his cut and paste movies that he made for IFD. Sadly the results are equally uneven as those movies often turn out to be. There are two plots here, one of the cops trying to find a criminal on the loose and another revolving around a criminal enterprise trying to take over the underworld. While the movie has some hilarious dialog courtesey to its dubbing as well as some memorable moments (the hitmen couple who operate in a symbiotic and synchronous manner, a gang of amateur, baseball playing hitmen, a notably bloody shootout in the finale), its story is a test of one's patience. I've certainly seen worse and wouldn't necessarily caution avoiding this title but as a whole I did not find it to be very noteworthy.