Chinatown Video: June 1998 releases
THE ADVENTURERS (1995)
Rated R, although buggered if I know why. 105 mins. $29.95.
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've rented The Killing Fields by accident. (Damn near
caused a walk-out in our living room, I can tell you.) 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.
ASIAN CONNECTION (1995) Rated
M. $29.95.
Most of you will remember Danny Lee as Dumbo in The Killer.
Here he is a few years later, a few years heavier, but with the same bad dress sense. He
teams up with Michael Chow, who looks familiar to me but I don't know
where from - I suspect he usually plays the dorky mobile-phone slinging boyfriend type.
I'm digressing. In this hour-and-a-half long chase movie, Danny and Michael
play two HK cops who get stung on a sting to the tune of five million HK taxpayers'
dollars. It was a cunning plan, whereby they offer an average street vermin a lot of money
for drugs they don't intend to buy, and stand ready to arrest him for the crime of selling
them what they asked for. Go figure. He grabs the cash and gives them the slip, and their
disgusted commissioner packs them off out of harm's reach to Taiwan, where they
accidentally pick up the dealer's trail again. Showing that they've learned from
experience, they up the ante by setting up a new fake deal worth 10 million dollars
American, a figure which further inflates to 40 mill by the time the last bad guy has been
perforated. And bad guys there are in spades; this is one of those great crime films where
the moment you've got a handle on who the head gangster is, the next bigger villain up the
food chain steps in and blows the current villain's brains out all over the nearest noodle
counter. Local Taiwan police commissioner Chan Chung-Yung (best known as
the man of virtueous persuasion in Fong Sai Yuk) shares the HK commissioner's
exasperation with our bumbling duo. He and Danny say "Fuck you"
to each other so many times that soon enough they're firm friends and Chung-Yung's
breaking out the family snaps of his wife and kids, which is HK film-maker semaphore for
"This guy is toast". Meanwhile Michael goes undercover
to set up the next big drug sting, and works hard to maintain his secret identity by
freely indulging in cocaine, girls, and some disco dancing which displays all the
suaveness of a marionette controlled by a puppeteer with Alzheimer's. It all comes out in
a wash of lead, as you knew it would when you first saw the video cover. Not as flashy a
film as The Adventurers, more a straight crime flick, and at times quite a
pedestrian one, but stay with it, as the characters do grow on you, and you'll pick up
lots of Cantonese swear words if you listen hard enough and practice in the mirror
afterwards.
DRAGON LORD (1982) Rated R.
92 mins. $29.95. Available in dubbed and subtitled editions.
It's a Jackie Chan film. If you like 'em, you know that he'll do some
astounding martial arts, flip some outdoor furnishings and brooms and shit around, fall
off some stuff, and otherwise be amiable and Jackie-like for as long as it takes the movie
to run or for you to finish your popcorn. Let's leave it at that, shall we?
MR VAMPIRE III (1987) Rated
MA. 89 mins. $35.00.
Third in the series of hopping vampire classics. I was saddened to learn recently that
star Lam Ching Ying died in November 1997, long before his time was
surely due. Who'll keep an eye on these
damn vampires now that the big man's gone?
Index of Chinatown Video releases since May
1998
H E R O I C * C I N E M A
http://www.heroic-cinema.com
