KENNETH'S REVIEW: Master swordsman Shih (James Tien) carries with him the red sword that he has to bring to Han I Chu (Tang Ching) in order to find out the secret behind his father's death. Along the way he is followed, attacked and everyone seems to have a craving for the sword that in Shih's hands is fast as lightning. Director Wong Tin-Lam tells slowly, possibly a bit too slowly before the plot-secrets starts to become revealed. In a quite stagy Golden Harvest production, he is definitely aided by his true collaboration, in every sense of the word, with action director Chen Kuan-Tai. Elevating the narrative with exciting one on one skirmishes and exciting one vs. hundred-battles, in its crude format there's still room for clever stylistic touches. Main one being the lack of a a glimpse for us of the fast sword, done through sharp editing and capped insanely well in the finale. Director Wong himself manages to even hold viewer interest through massive exposition in the latter half and despite a less than stellar cast on board to embody all of this, The Chase is involving and unusually engaging for a twist-heavy piece. Maria Yi co-stars.

Newspaper photographer Sunflower (Liu Wai-Hung, also director) gets thrown off a high railing on a commercial shoot by famed boxer Tiger Dog Bruce Lee (Wong Ching) after being mistaken for a triad attempting to make the boxer lose an upcoming fight. While at the hospital, Sunflower's cousin (Danny Lee) hatches a plan to fake a paralyzed state in Sunflower in order to get a great, big chunk of money from the insurance company. Riddled with guilt, Tiger Dog even hassles Sunflower to the point that he's taken on board as a maid...

What starts out as a glimpse of what rival reporters and photographers get up to transforms into a fully predictable tale of greed, humanity and the destructive effect the former has on a life, in this case Tiger Dog's. Liu Wai-Hung's only directorial job, he's being straightforward about his goals and Chase A Fortune is merely a semi-wacky time with 80s Hong Kong cinema. Something you'd rather have over much else but the film grows a few notches during the boxing finale as Liu manages to find some meaning in the friendship between his character and Tiger Dog. Wong Kar-Wai wrote the screenplay while Charlie Cho, Lung Tin-Sang, Parkman Wong, Joh Chung and Billy Lau turns up in the cast.

Being one of the founders of Cinema City, Dean Shek could also put himself into more personally flattering roles that any other company would hesitate at doing. In one of their earlier productions, Shek plays Robert, returning home from America, afro and all, to find himself a wife (a plot device echoed in his own directed The Perfect Wife?! in 1983). Time to live up to the movie title, team up with Eric Tsang and get a pink car but along the way, the girls are also chasing, in particular Fa (Nancy Lau)...

There has to be some form of redemption handed out to any movie where Dean Shek keeps his face almost always in normal mode throughout. Chasing Girls represents one of those slightly less obnoxious acts and the various skits along the way with Eric Tsang reveals a decent comic chemistry. This is why Chasing Girls surprises but director Karl Maka clearly hasn't got enough material for a feature as he reprises the same scenario between Fa and Robert while also inserting an overlong car chase towards the end. Also starring Flora Cheung while Karl Maka and Sammo Hung appear in cameos.

It's a group of conmen (Jordan Chan, Alex Fong, Chapman To, Ken Wong & Hera Lam) vs. the legendary King of Ghosts (Simon Loui), all trying to scam money within the business world. Betrayal, conflicts and divided loyalties takes center stage as one of the gang gets killed...

Billy Chung (Love To Kill, Shiver) taps into the charisma of crucial performers Jordan Chan, Alex Fong and Simon Loui, even getting subtle weight from the interactions of the characters but at the end of the day, nothing much of importance or akin to special goes on in The Cheaters. Chung seems to be aware of that as he populates the proceedings with highly intrusive MTV style that simply screams desperate to please rather than earning a spot as part of the atmosphere. The final 20 minutes of this relatively short thriller plays out decently though as Chung clearly has a grip on how to provide decent tension but the implausible nature to the twists can really drive you up the wall if it weren't for the atmosphere Chung finally provides.

Now celebrated director Edmond Pang (Men Suddenly In Black, Beyond Our Ken) co-wrote the script.

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A sad and desperate attempt to launch Wei Pai as a Jackie Chan style hero. There's certainly potential here for The Cheeky Chap to be a passable diversion even though it's very clear Wei doesn't possess the charm or charisma of said star. Also why the film completely fails is due to the highly strange and frankly unlikable character that Wei is stuck with (coincidentally, same was true for his supporting role in The Young Master). Never in my life have I seen a so called hero being this devious, evil and strange in his happy go lucky ways and even with that insane arc, the film doesn't even entertain on a ludicrous level. It's tedious to the max and the martial arts action only occasionally sparkles (especially the end weapons duel). It's hard to see the direction Golden Harvest could've taken Wei Pai in but they so missed the point that you can't just emulate someone like Jackie Chan through another player.

Director Yeung Chi-Gin apparently knew of only one thing when creating his Category III "epics" of the early 90s and that was to mix it up. Pretty Woman gave us rape, grating comedy, romance, Veronica Yip in the shower, gunplay action and while created as a drama, China Dolls has the same feel. Amy Yip plays a cursed Mainland woman fleeing with her husband after he's murdered a cop but soon he's dead at the hands of the Hong Kong police. Leaving her infant son in the hands of a good-hearted traffic cop (Lam Ching Ying), she ends up in Macau as a prostitute under slave-like conditions...

Stripping almost all comedy (Charlie Cho's introduction scene to the newly shipped prostitutes in cage is an elaborate stage show literally). and offering up designated character fates that take shape in the form of degradation, perversions and pessimism, you can never complain about sincere intentions and they are somewhere in there under all of the above. This of course means that China Dolls is a poor mish-mash but not entirely boring however, especially since it throws caution to the wind with a quick narrative and even a big gunplay scene towards the end. For all of its over the top melodrama choices, Amy Yip's final scene is a fairly admirable attempt at closure for the character. It's also a shame in a way that Lam Ching Ying's role didn't get expanded to at least supporting status as that could've given the film some much needed warmth. Wu Ma co-stars in a nasty turn, with the signature scene being his abuse of Amy Yip's face and bust with his feet. Also with Lee Yuet-Sin.

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Jimmy Wang Yu debuted as director at Shaw Brother's with The Chinese Boxer, an effort that set in stone some of the kung fu genre's very familiar and now generic staples. It was certainly a template for Bruce Lee's best vehicle, Fist Of Fury, which was then followed by a gazillion other movies trying to cash in on the formula.

Jimmy does get things started quickly and before you know it, he's also done, meaning very little substance aside from a dose of irony story-wise and when it comes to filmmaking aspects. The story of how Chinese martial arts was adapted by the Japanese into Karate and that they're now using it against Chinese makes for an uplifting patriotic saga in its most simple form. But Jimmy, having honed his screen charisma well by now, does communicate well enough for this to hit home with the local viewers. What's ironic about the film, and many others before and since, is the obvious Japanese cinematic influences in a story that's so definitely anti-Japanese.

Having worked with director Chang Cheh, some of the influences definitely come directly from there, such as the substantial, but repetitive bloodshed. Even One-Armed Swordsman gets a nod by the use of a mask that Jimmy's character takes on here while on his rampage. Anything shot on the Shaw's lot is bound to look good also and Jimmy takes advantage of that but still lingers and overdoes his particular cinematic style at times (especially in regards to editing).

Tong Gaai lent his action directing talents to the project and while the styles (mainly Judo, Karate and different forms that Wang Yu's character takes on) on display doesn't exactly makes for great action cinema, there seems to exist a notion that fury needs to be amped instead, which makes for an entertaining view (the finale in a cold, snowy landscape is a memorable image in particular). When subsequently going independent, Jimmy went even further, borderlining insane, with certain action aspects but keeps it subdued in The Chinese Boxer, with the biggest mad touches coming from Lo Lieh's Japanese villain (and his hair).

It's overkill to use the term important but Jimmy Wang Yu's The Chinese Boxer is. As a movie, it's painless, entertaining and neat early 70s kung-fu, that starts right here... The sequel was lensed independently in Taiwan in 1974.

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HK Flix.com
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