Chi xian zhen bian ren

Martial arts great Sammo Hung stars as Success Hung, a Hong Kong phone salesman who witnesses a murder of a triad gang leader and, unfortunately, is pursued by the two masked killers who spots Hung as the witness. Hung consults psychiatrist Dr. Ko (Joyce Godenzi) to help him with his already-complicated life and inadvertently runs into the masked murderers, who were also seeking psychiatric help for their hunger for killing. Hung's policewoman wife Lisa (Li Yu) and her colleague Ai (Collin Chou), who despises Hung, try to protect him.

This movie has a good dose of humor, including the love-hate relationship between Hung and his fiery co-worker Ling (Carol 'Do Do' Cheng) and the chatty personality of Dr. Ko. There are some good martial arts action between Hung and Chou, and some eerie and dark scenes featuring the masked killers Owl and Bat. Jacky Cheung and Lam Ching-Ying really took their out-of-character roles of Owl and Bat to a whole different level - very chilling and dynamic. Carol Cheng, though, overdid it and over indulged in her role as Ling.

The plot goes at a fast pace. I thought the main story about Hung trying to escape the killers, with co-worker Ling caught in the chaos, is cleverly done. Ai's personal vendetta against Hung adds onto the suspense. And, where there is no action, there is laugh-out-loud comedy. A fun movie!

Grade B+

Success Hung, an ace cell phone salesman who his feeling the heat from young, up and comer Miss Cheng. One day, Hung witnesses a mob hit. Though the panic-stricken salesman tries to tell his friends about the incident, Hung's gift for exaggeration in the past makes everyone suspicion of his claims except for a relative the deceased who comes to believe that Hung pulled the trigger.

Sammo Hung's Slickers vs. Killers from 1991 is one of his later directorial works and is characterised by a wild, unconventional genre mix that doesn't really want to harmonise. The plot revolves around the goofy telephone salesman Success Hung, who is always telling his wife, a tough policewoman, some exaggerated claim, so that she hardly ever buys anything from him afterwards. This prompts him to see a psychologist. One day, Hung sees two killers at work and only just escapes when they spot him. Of course, no one believes him in this incident either.

The fights are expectedly good, Sammo has fun chemistry with Carol Cheng, and because of this this film is mildly entertaining, however the film can be baffling with overlong scenes with misguided humour ( Cheng accusing Hung of rape) which stifle the momentum of the pace, diminishing the story focus. For Sammo Hung fans only.

I stumbled across a subtitled version of this while channel surfing in Taiwan. It had me rolling on the floor.

The movie reminded me of some of Jackie Chan's more humorous work, but with even more emphasis on humor without any loss of martial arts. The humor is quirky (not predictable or trite) and generally pretty clean, along the lines of Princess Bride or Office Space... but the jokes keep coming much faster than in those two movies. There is not much strongly "adult" humor; although the movie is about a killer and there is a scene where a woman mistakenly believes she has been raped, this stuff is done very tastefully (in my opinion).

I highly recommended this for anyone who likes fast-paced, slapstick (but sophisticated) comedy--and doesn't mind subtitles with an occasional grammatical error.

The movie is pretty much gore-free. Although it does have a lot of fighting, the fighting scenes are done in an intentionally unrealistic style.