Johnny Lee (A Day Without Policeman) wants the handle the modern day gangster movie aspects with some form of depth and as almost always, it really is there for the taking. You do need to flash some form of skills and creativity though, something very absent from Lee's work on From The Same Family. Centering on the rise and fall of Roy Cheung's character, with a little spirituality thrown in, Lee's at times manic style distracts more than it is a benefactor. He tries to sell as this as efficiency but it creates even more distance from characters we early on guess won't be much to care for anyway. The triad lifestyle is an endless cycle and that's how From The Same Family feels too. Also with Hilary Tsui, Jimmy Wong and Lam Man-Lung.

A repressed writer of adult comic books (Francis Ng) gets hit by a car and all of a suddenly seems to possess superpowers when provoked. David Wu's film (co-written by Cheung Tat-Ming) neatly walks that line between fantasy and reality as Ng's lead character clearly has a streak of psychologically disturbed behaviour in him. Wu is not trying to convince us that an actual fantasy have come to life, even though the film does take off-beat, out there turns at times. Ng in the lead proves to be amusing and as his mother protesting against these types of comics (enter satire), Cheng Pei-Pei even proves that a touching performance can come out of this. Some very cool bits emerge, especially when we see Ng in his superhero costume, speaking "Japanese" (spouting brand names and other assorted nonsense) and afterwards violating anyone he's saved, including old people and animals. This combo however of social satire and black comedy doesn't come with any true poignancy and is probably a bit too silly for its own good (the inclusion of a guitar player as some form of musical narrator is a puzzling choice). Shot in synch sound, co-stars include Joseph Cheng, Anita Lee, Dayo Wong and Emily Kwan.

Unless you count Sam Hui's cameo in Chicken And Duck Talk, Front Page saw the reunion between of Sam, Michael and Ricky Hui for the first time since their comedy classic Security Unlimited. Staying true to their formula by tapping into social satire, Phillip Chan's direction of it all may have gotten the lot box-office success but the flick isn't a TRUE return to form. However there exists worthwhile chemistry between the trio still and neither brother is afraid to run the distance in terms of silliness.

Chan and Michael Hui collaborated on the script that sees the latter playing the editor of the magazine "Truth Weekly" and he realizes no one wants clean, politically correct news in Hong Kong. People want scandals, gossip and smut so the Hui-trio in skit-form sets out to exploit in the name of sales. It gets insane already when we read the translation of Sam's theme song that advocates getting stoned, paging your buddies and watching movies. We are then offered up a rather evident skit structure that sees the trio trying to manufacture celebrity ghost stories, adultery gossip but they also stop a while to cheat on each other at mahjong. The insistence on being as silly as you can is first best served up in the mahjong game where Sam and Ricky are equipped with special contacts lenses in order to gain advantage. They also glow in the dark. Cue ghost joke. When later trying to set up Catherine Hung's Sandy by all acting like a retarded family in order to get a story of her cheating on her husband, actual laughs are soon exchanged for expected conscience and Front Page certainly never earns its satire fully. Lau Siu-Ming singing bad karaoke and Sam Hui desperately trying to achieve martial arts prowess Bruce Lee never had are minor fun tangents as well in a welcome work but not a fully realized one. Mostly shot in synch sound and also appearing are Teddy Yip, Teresa Mo, Paul Chun, Tai Po, Lee Hoi-Sang and Yuen Shun-Yi.

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Full Contact is not an effort neither Ringo Lam or Chow Yun-Fat will quote as their proudest moment at the end of their days, even though it's a fan favourite overseas. Lam stated that it was a money vehicle for him and not a personal one akin to Wild Search or School On Fire while Chow recognized that his character was way too evil for both his and the Hong Kong audiences tastes. Perhaps they're right but it's a guilty pleasure ride despite!

A revenge and redemption story set amongst the baddest of the bad, Full Contact is clearly placed within the characteristics of the heroic bloodshed genre but even the best of those efforts had characters with some form of true nobility as gangsters. Lam and writer Nam Yin instead opts to gravely pull the rug underneath our feet to give us repulsive and highly unsympathetic characters outside of the slight journey Chow Yun-Fat's Jeff goes through. By doing this, they also kick all aspects into high, over the top gear, meaning gory violence, seedy environments, an atmospheric Teddy Robin Kwan guitar score and it's definitely very much close to an anti-heroic bloodshed film. Yet, it's literally bloody, harmless adult entertainment despite all the nastiness on display and Lam does shows off great style to boot (most famously through the use of the "bullet-cam"). Chow Yun-Fat is, despite his character ways, still the coolest cat in Hong Kong cinema and Simon Yam uses his flamboyance to delivery a colourful, gay villain. The final confrontation between the two comes with one of the most quoted subtitles of the film. Anthony Wong, Ann Bridgewater, Frankie Ng and Bonnie Fu co-stars.

The original cinema version played with a Category II rating but later Cat III rated video versions reinstated several moments of gore (the Mei Ah dvd incorrectly states that it's still Cat II). There's also evidence in the film of at least one deleted scene that involves Anthony Wong's Sam forced by Yam's Judge to bring the eyes of Jeff as evidence that he's killed him. Wong reportedly instead cuts out the eyes of one of the killed family members in the house where this all takes place. Him then exiting the house shows him grasping on something in his hands (a shot that's in the film) and what would've followed was Judge placing the eye balls in his mouth. It's not quite The Big Boss status on this lost scene but still...

In later years, an alternate soundtrack has turned up on Columbia Tri-Star's release and the UK Hong Kong Legends dvd. Most notably, much of Teddy Robin's score is gone in favour of even more tracks culled from Extreme's Pornograffitti album (outside of "Get The Funk Out" that plays over the opening credits on every version). Mei Ah presents the soundtrack many have listened to over the years but the debate goes on about the validity of the newly surfaced track. It's your choice.

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TROY'S REVIEW: Pierre Kirby, star of the classic Zombie Vs Ninja, headlines in this wacky cut & paste effort set ostensibly in the 17th Century as indicated here by the inception of musket weaponry. Of course, seeing as Godfrey Ho directed the film in question, you can immediately throw any hopes of abstruse historical accuracy right out the window. Kirby appears as Leon, a ninja with a grudge (and a gun!) against Boris, a fellow ninja who we are informed previously killed his family. Playing out simultaneously to this tale is another story of retribution, this time featuring a master swordsman called Eagle, who is trying to track down and seize back his beloved wife from the evil General Leung. Well, with our man Ho in the directors chair you can always count on one thing; some decidedly risible and side splitting attempts to link the two very separate stories (and films!) together. Sure enough, the inept efforts at just that prove to be some of the most hilarious in any of these films. Good old Godfrey Ho, the man is a "genius".

A big flop upon release in 1995, which is perhaps why comedy legend Michael Hui didn't appear in a Hong Kong production again until 2004 (although he did have a supporting role against Gong Li and Jeremy Irons in Wayne Wang's The Chinese Box). Hui plays business efficient Mainlander Fuk-Ching who goes into the hotel business, prompted by a shady Western businessman (Gregory Charles River - Her Fatal Ways IV). However giving each and everyone he knows something to do at the hotel proves to be his quick downfall. Fuk-Ching takes a second trip to Hong Kong in order to really learn how to run his business. He does so by working amongst the low-end workers of a hotel managed by Vivi (Alice Lau).

Quite wildly local and over the top with its satire, the intentions seems to stagger with Clifton Ko at the helm but when basically going physical on us, the exaggerated gags of Fuk-Ching's hotel falling apart and his way of acquiring knowledge when working for Vivi plays more favourably and Hui scores a gem or two here. It's merely amusing and a far cry from his best work but Funny Business eventually pays off decently thanks to likeable turns by Hui and Lau. James Wong, Lo Jun-Ho, Law Kar-Ying, Cheung Tat-Ming (who also wrote the script), Teddy Yip and Rachel Lee (as herself) also appear.

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A bit distant and routine, this Johnny Wang directed heroic bloodshed entry ends up favourably thanks to its intensity. With a weapons deal gone wrong, betrayal and bottled up emotions on display, Wang sets his sights of the themes running very much rampant during this time (post-A Better Tomorrow). It's mostly standard but performers Waise Lee and Phillip Chan do mean what they project, especially Lee who handles the conflicted state of his character well. Michael Wong (dubbed by someone else not sounding AT ALL like him but it's thankfully a full on Cantonese language performance because of the trade-off) looks good in a beard but don't carry himself better than that and you'll also have to endure a breakdancing scene from him. An unconvincing, unsympathetic character looking for redemption comes out via Ellen Chan's role but that opportunity director Wang doesn't utilize so Fury receives yet another mark of mediocrity.

But to a fine degree, his action (done together with Tony Tam who also worked on City Warriors) goes a suitable gritty and excessive route, giving us mayhem worthy of the era, in good amount of bursts. As always especially during the finale. Co-starring are Ku Feng, Kirk Wong and Carrie Ng.

KENNETH'S REVIEW: Ding Sin-Saai dipped in a worse way into history for Everlasting Glory in 1975, employing major historical facts and creating utter boredom in the process. Fury Of King Boxer takes an important template, about the rebels that eventually managed to create the Chinese Republic, but thankfully decides to mix it up with that pesky notion of creating bearable action cinema too. Gwok Siu-Chung is Chow Ken, the female revolutionary that left behind wealth and family to pursue her dream of not being one of them oppressed Chinese. Jimmy Wang Yu is one of her closest, able men and while patriotic dialogue comes off as really awkward (as well as other cinema choices when in this mode), the film is well anchored by mayhem. Featuring a handful of superbly epic action scenes, in particular the ones featuring Wang Yu where he uses knifes, guns, bayonets and his resolve that makes him beat about a million opponents. It all might play out as somebody's treasured history but to most others, it's quite a superb ride for large amounts of the running time.

So Wong Jing either forgot to or didn't get rights to use the characters from Capcom's Street Fighter games but predictably, that didn't stop him. Changing names and design to apparently stay within the legal framework, there's no doubt what Future Cops is referencing but even if Capcom had bothered to look, they and the rest of the universe would've left Future Cops alone. Why? Because it's Wong Jing at his most unbearably worst.

Structuring a very minimal plot around a therefore very long 90 minutes, Wong's at the time audience friendly cast (that includes Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Chingmy Yau and Simon Yam) and humour goes all the way to appear stupid, annoying and completely unfunny. Insipid is another word and one can definitely imagine Wong Jing having a blast himself coming up with the so called gags of this one. Best just to play along was probably the actor's perspective. Are we also supposed to be impressed when Wong references modern pop culture icons such as Super Mario Bros? It's more a case of pure Hong Kong cinema embarrassment from a profile that nowadays barely has any stars or audience anymore, as evident by the failure of Kung Fu Mahjong and its sequel. This big kick in the balls hopefully will trigger Wong Jing to actually put in effort and perhaps concentrate on serious stories on a more regular basis. We all know he can, on occasion (see Colour Of The Truth).

Future Cops action directing team, consisting of Ching Siu-Tung, Deon Lam and Ma Yuk Sing does spice up the picture with minute charming action that echoes the Street Fighter spirit to the fairly good degree that the sequence in City Hunter also did.

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