Bi xie lan tian

This movie was my first encounter with any Hong Kong film. I watched this movie back in 1999 (on a VCR cassette).

The story line is like many other holly wood movies produced at that time: "A patriotic cop in a difficult and life saving situation". Action is sloppy sometimes but the martial arts is quite good.

Acting of lead cast both hero and villain is convincing (except the female lead because her performance was over-loud and not up to the standards).

Dubbing could have been more better. Over all 6/10.

If you can bear the 90's action, it is a good movie to watch.

These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles; it was clear from viewing that characters had been given Anglicised names in the subtitles; I'll stick to those names.

This Hong Kong action film is centred on Arthur, a Chinese soldier. After disobeying orders, to stop a plane hijacking, he is posted to the fictional country of Lavernia... apparently an ex-Soviet nation somewhere in Eastern Europe. Almost as soon as he arrives he witnesses a terror attack being committed by Mishima; the leader of a Japanese cult. He manages to catch Mishima but local forces take credit for the arrest. Soon afterwards he bumps into his old flame Tammy, who fled China after the events in Tiananmen Square. Mishima may be in jail but he had previously been working with a traitorous Lavernian minister and he plans to use the Chinese by having them escort him back to Japan, where he is facing terror charges, and then ambush them leaving no witnesses... this leads to a confrontation in the Chinese embassy as Arthur faces Mishima while the Laverian arm shoots at anybody leaving the embassy compound.

If you want plenty of exciting martial arts action then this film delivers; especially during the climatic fight in the embassy. Unfortunately some of the other action isn't so good; when characters are shot with automatic weapons they stand jiggling in an almost comical manner and several explosions look fake. A degree of comedy is added by the fact that none-Chinese characters talk in not so brilliantly dubbed English. The story is decent enough; it provides a good excuse for action although the sub-plot involving his girlfriend is a bit of a distraction. The cast is solid enough most obviously Chiu Man Cheuk as Arthur and Andrew Lin as Mishima. Overall I wouldn't call this a must see but if you like martial arts action it is worth watching.

Allun Lam's The Blacksheep Affair (1998, Hong Kong) is a fast paced action pack set in some fictional East European country Lavernia. Man Cheuk Chiu's character Yim Dong, a policeman, is sent there as a punishment for his disobedience towards his authorities during the film's opening plane hijacking. In Lavernia, there's an evil Japanese Mishima (Hoi Lin) captured and his group has done some very severe damage to the people and he thinks he's on mission from God to "cure the world" by killing and so on. Qi Shu plays Dong's old love Chan Pun who also happens to be in Lavernia. What follows is action and brutality as the evil Japanese kill and kill innocent people and the good Chinese cop must fight them to death.

The film is very annoying in its attitudes towards foreigners, Japanese mostly. They are depicted as evil and rotten killers that cannot be good or change. The screenplay is filled with lines like "those evil Japanese this and that.." and I really can't appreciate a film that has so incorrect attitudes and undertones for no any apparent reason or real importance. And that's not everything that's wrong with this film.

Qi Shu's character, a young and attractive female, is depicted as total moron who can't do anything in a hot situation but scream hysterically and act as if she had no idea what's she screaming for and could she perhaps do something to it. This film suggests that females can't really do much and they are just useless pieces of flesh in a dangerous situation. All that seem to be good and capable for something noteworthy are of course the Chinese men and their police.

The music is very bad in my opinion and even though it tries to make the goings on more dramatic, it fails and sounds almost naive. None of the characters become too interesting or close to the real person so their destinies don't touch and make me feel anything either. There's only one thing this film manages to do somewhat good and that is the action.

The action choreography by the great Ching Siu Tung is not as near as kinetic and inventive as in his masterpieces (Chinese Ghost Story trilogy, various John Woo films plus many others) but his talent make the action scenes easy to watch and thus the whole film much easier to watch. The violence is surprisingly brutal and almost exploitive so there's plenty of evil acts committed by evil, uncharismatic and unreal characters in this film. Not too nice an experience for a lover of ambitious and unique Eastern cinema.

The Blacksheep Affair is very close to the most boring and needless HK category and is worth watching only for the occasional action scenes and some inventive usage of camera. For most of the time, the twisted and moving camera angles and drives don't mean anything special, they're just there to make the film look more "stylish", but at least occasionally they manage to depict something, too. A good example is at least the scene in which Qi Shu's character escapes from the raging masses. Otherwise there's nothing special or memorable in this film, and thus it is among the least convincing pieces of the more recent Hong Kong cinema.

3/10 and barely so.

One of the most moronic HK films ever. Even the original Cantonese dialogue is horrendous. The hero is dull and the love interest is excessively annoying.

The gunplay is also ridiculous, filled with scenes where 10 gunmen miss the 2 heroes despite them being out in the open. In John Woo movies (The Killer, Hard Boiled), the heroes at least pretend to hide behind something. There's also one scene that has to be seen to be believed. A bad guy shoots a bazooka, and we see the missile come out. Then the explosion happens *behind* the target, as though it magically passed through. I can suspend belief for action films, but this is just sloppy choreography.

The martial arts is okay, but overemphasizes flashy acrobatics over real fighting or tactics. The lead actor seems talented enough, but is wasted in this action fluff. I would only recommend this movie if you've seen every other HK action movie already.

3/10

"The Blacksheep Affair" was not one of the better Hong Kong action movies, though it wasn't a total waste of time either.

I picked up this movie from Amazon because Shu Qi is in it, and I am a fan of hers, and she did a great job in the movie, despite having a small supporting role only. The lead role was held by Chiu Man Chuk, and he was actually also doing a good job.

The story in "The Blacksheep Affair" was a bit too silly for my liking. It didn't have much continuity in it, and there were some holes in the plot here and there. But still, not the worst Hong Kong movie I have seen, but there are a lot far better Hong Kong movies available.

I found two things odd in this movie. The first was why people would be speaking English in this fictional country, Lavernia. And not just English, but poorly dubbed English with a strong lack of emotion and commitment. It was just hilarious, and it brought the movie down a notch. The second thing was the out-of-touch-with-reality-sounds that was used whenever people were throwing punches, kicking stuff and using swords. Those sounds were so bad.

One of the best things in "The Blacksheep Affair" was the ending, that was actually a nice surprise, and that made it up for the lack of proper storyline throughout the entire movie.