Lian huan pao

My buddy Tom sent me this old school HK flick under the "A Man From Holland" title and it reminded me just how insane those things could get sometimes. Hit-man Wai Fei (Phillip Ko) arrives in Hong Kong from Holland and is given the task of eliminating three targets. He also hooks up with his brother, Wai Keung (Ray Lui), who just happens to be an Inspector who is investigating the two warring gangs (one led by Chai Wai Man starring as a guy named Chan Sai Man) that his brother is dealing with. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Well, not so fast. This flick is amazingly (and needlessly) complex to the point I got a headache trying to recall what was going on. It doesn't help that the English subtitles will offer you lines like, "Boss Chan, this bottle of wine is a gift from Mr. Chan." Even more bizarre are these random scenes that almost seems like they were filmed by a different group, except they feature the actors involved in the production. The "highlight" is a scene where American John Ladalski, one of the three targets, spends his free time on the beach taking pictures of a topless girl. He then proceeds to tie her down, paint a bucktoothed Mickey Mouse on her stomach and then let a bunch of baby turtles crawl all over her nude body (different strokes for different folks) before Ko shows up to kill him. Scenes like this totally make up for the boring police procedural parts. It apparently got a dubbing and re-edit by Joseph Lai's IFD company as MAGNUM THUNDERBOLT.

Regular Eastern cinematic bad guy, Philip Ko stars in this typically baffling IFD affair as a hit-man who's brother happens to be a cop (yep, complications are very much on the cards here!) Of course, this being an IFD flick with Ko in it, one thing is immediately guaranteed; a rough sex scene(!) Just what the hell is it with Ko and such sequences in these flicks? As it happens we're not exactly given much chance to ponder such questions, as the ostensibly contractually requisite scene transpires within the very first minute of the films running time!!!!

The rest of the film is a decidedly confusing mess (as we've come to expect from Joseph Lai's infamous production company) involving Ko hired to take out three targets including fellow regular bad guy John Ladalski (who it is revealed, has a somewhat sinisterly themed predilection for performing body painting and photography upon hapless damsels!) Whilst this plot is simple enough, matters become a more thoroughly head scratching affair when another tale of drug dealing and murder kicks into action involving two crime syndicates (or at least that's what I made of it anyway).

Still, to be fair, do any of these films make even a jot of sense? Of course not! – And that's precisely why they're so much fun! With this in mind therefore, one has only to simply sit back and enjoy the demented spectacle that is on display. And the highlights in this particular entry?

OK, brace yourself because here we have a rather notable combination of vaginal drug smuggling, a shower head drowning(!), torture by baby turtles(!!), a transvestite assassin(!!!) and a dog sniffing women's bottoms(!!!!) Yes, it's all here, every ingredient one could surely ever want for in a film……erm…….well maybe.