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THE ADVENTURERS (1995) This is a complete gem, despite three startling pieces of evidence to the contrary: (1) the title makes it sound like a pirate movie, (2) the promo still makes it look like a Chinese Top Gun, and (3) the opening scene is set in Cambodia in 1975 and is so grim that you wonder if you're watching The Killing Fields by accident. Well, stick with it friends, because that 7 year old watching his mother machine-gunned to pieces in those first few moments is going to grow up to be Andy Lau, and you know that this means that sooner or later he's going to put on his cleanest white T-shirt and swear to get revenge. Said revenge takes a good 100 minutes to unravel, as to get close to his target our boy has to marry his foe's daughter, played with rice-burning appeal by Wu Chien-Lien. This is a mistake on two fronts, firstly because it rightly pisses off Rosamund Kwan, the villain's main squeeze, who is driven mad with lust by the sight of Andy with a few bullet holes in him (figure that one out, kids), and secondly because goddamit our boy falls in love with his new wife, which is never a good move in these Marry The Girl So As You Can Get In Close And Whack The Dad Triad Revenge Drama Type Movies. Before you can say "CIA helicopter gunships" the whole cast are back in Cambodia waving guns at each other and finishing off what was started 20 years and 95 minutes earlier. All in all, it's a rattling yarn with a cracking plot and a fine story from director Ringo Lam, and you know that means quality with a capital Q and several exploding Cambodian villages. MARK MORRISON Mark Morrison is the webmaster of Heroic-Cinema, and curator of the current series of Classic Doubles at Melbourne's Chinatown Cinema. He has written video sleeves for Chinatown Video, and has contributed reviews and articles to Empire, Beat and FAAN.
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