Formulaic but often very entertaining, Seasonal gave Jackie Chan Peking Opera classmate and frequent collaborator Mars a chance to plow his path as a Chan style comic martial arts hero. That's one aspect of Lackey And The Lady Tiger that is sorely lacking, the leadership. Otherwise, despite following a formula featuring all too grating comedy and swiping entire key scenes from Snake In The Eagle's Shadow (although they stay clear of the animal cruelty in this one), the film has often fine pole work, acrobatics from the lead and energy in the form of Tien Niu's literally boyish character. She even does a version of "Rock Around The Clock" while putting Mars's character through training. Veteran Sek Kin also holds his own quite well when swinging the pole but the real quality injection all round comes when Hwang Jang-Lee (straight from the Drunken Master set seemingly) begins to offer up some trademark, amazing kicking. A momentum that is sustained throughout subsequently. Linda Lin, Fung Ging-Man, To Siu-Ming and Chiang Kam also appear.

Running a lean 78 minutes, clearly the original slasher thriller starring Chung Faat as the psycho ex-husband of Carrie Ng's character didn't shoot or edit together a whole lot of footage so added to that short running time is about 10 minutes of largely unrelated sex scenes with Chung Faat's somewhat elder boss and his girl/mistress/whatever played by Rena Otomo. Placing our slasher lead in these scenes makes the illusion more bearable but with its changing film stock and with no English subtitle translation for these scenes, it's evident Ladies Killer made a decision to beef up its market potential in the early 90s regardless if it fit or not. It is largely an embarrassing time though, with stale direction and a Chung Fat not pulling off the psychotic role very well. The Halloween score is stolen for this movie's "tense" scenes and Chung Fat's ending reel street is of pretty decent caliber. It doesn't make it boring at 78 but nevertheless thoroughly forgettable unless you're cataloging any movie with added sex in the most obvious of ways. Also with Melvin Wong.

Out to free their boss, the Hwa clan led by Lady 9 Flower (Sam Suet-Jan) have to come up with a different plan after one leads to several of their brothers dying. Seeking up her old school and master in order to extract the top pupil from that school, she is not welcome back unless she performs harsh tasks for 7 days. As Lady 9 Flower does so, she's also started a game of manipulation in order to further not only one but several plans of revenge...

Going multi-characters on us from the getgo via lengthy and stiff exposition, the fundamental problem of this Taiwanese Wuxia piece isn't that it stays way too close to stage play antics but that it's a very boring theatre experience. It never survives being talky and most definitely never survives bringing in characters with muddled or boring purposes. The swordplay and Wuxia techniques are as expected not particularly refined but as always, had they come within a context and viewer engagement, tables would've turned instantly. The choreography shines more in its depiction of Wuxia techniques (jumps seen in point of view shots and trees falling when being slashed from a great distance are neat gags even in 1969). Otherwise only one beach confrontation gets tension-levels up to a bearable degree. An almost Dean Shek-esque villain (Cheung Kwong-Chiu) appears and in the end Lady 9 Flower has progressed into a piece where characters are neither good or evil. It's an interesting last thought, done in an uninteresting package.

KENNETH'S REVIEW: Funky sights, sounds, a stiff murder investigation and a family melodrama, this yawner from Taiwan won't have heads turning (probably would've helped to include it though). Pai is the presumably dead daughter that pops up again (possibly from hell) to execute revenge on the associates of her mother. A mother that abandoned her dad (not by blood however) on his death bed. Au Wai leads the investigation and while odd, totally unintentionally funny (such as when drama plays out in front of the corpse of the father and acting reaching parody-like levels during a late revelation), there's nothing going on in A Lady Came From The Hell. Suen Yuet also appears.

Not too special but often intense, stylish and brutal, from one of Billy Chung's most noticeable years of directing (that also contained The Assassin and Love To Kill) comes Lady Super Cop. Inspiring little with that title, Carina Lau is the dedicated (way too some might say) madam whose cousin (also a cop, played by Teresa Mo) has a more laid back attitude. But a manically laughing madman of a villain (Chin Ho) disrupts any fun and puts lives on the line. Chung doesn't touch as such upon character-drama but the ultra-stylized environments (bathed in blue for instance) are fetching and the flick really "only" wants to score when employing brutality and action. Chung, feeling very at home with the atmosphere that content can contain, doesn't bathe the screen red in blood however and that's the effective choice for Lady Super Cop. Waise Lee, Michael Chan and Eric Tsang also appear.

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A by now superb team-up between director Wong Fung and Angela Mao (after classics such as The Angry River and Hap Ki Do) took on more of the latter in fighting style (according to the trailer) but reduced the story even more. Not to worry though.

Ling Shi-Hao (Chang Yi) is almost fatally injured but is taken care of by Wu Ching-Erh's character. She spreads the rumour that Ling is dead but on the hunt for revenge on Ling is still Tien Li-Chun (Angela Mao). But before she can get to her mission, her cold heart and lethal skills must be re-adjusted in order to help Ling defeat his enemies (Pai Ying leading that group) that now knows he's alive. The story certainly works within the framework of a martial arts/basher genre entry but truly is canned in every sense of the word. Who cares though when action director Sammo Hung delivers literally whirlwind-fights, best being when he himself is beaten almost to a bloody pulp by the queen of fighting intensity, Angela Mao. This intense and hard hitting choreography continues to be delivered throughout the film, especially after Chang Yi achieves superb Tai Chi skills that gives the filmmakers an excuse to deliver a fun gory time as well. Also with Chin Yuet-Sang.

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It is low budget filmmaker Tony Leung Hung-Wah behind the camera so ambitious goals that speak of the psychology behind a rapist and a murderer, in connection with schizophrenia is smothered a bit under the low-fi package that A Lamb In Despair is. Having said that, Leung's ideas are worthwhile ones and manages to unexpectedly resonate a wee bit. The Category III vehicles of this exploitative kind didn't usually allow for slight bit more intelligence, especially not in 1999. Using the cliché of an abusive childhood to elaborate on, lead Mok Ga-Yiu's Ted is both the unstoppable beast and an unfortunate victim as his sickness springs to life again when media (led by a journalist with an agenda, played by Anthony Wong) hounds him. But the human mind is difficult to map out and predict, leading both to Ted's ex-neigbour Mendy (Sherming Yiu) and Maggie, a girl with a keen interest in psychology, hovering in danger. Leung shoots effective, degrading sequences worthy of the III-rating but is not overly interested in graphic depictions. Cheung Tat-Ming is horribly miscast as a tough as nails cop while Simon Loui and Joe Cheung also appear.

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At the beginning stages a fairly ambitious film visually but Lau Ga-Yung (New Kids In Town) squeezes about as much originality out of this downwards spiral triad tale as you would expect a hundred or so movies into the genre. Lee Ga-Sing is the son fascinated with becoming a triad, dragging his family down in the process. Drama enters because father (Ng Man-Tat) used to be one and only way to pull the son out of the open arms of death is to participate a little again. Solid performances by Man-Tat and May Law as the mother makes Lantern at least a product lacking embarrassment but the moral of the story is no news to anyone. Athena Chu gets a flower vase role unfortunately while Max Mok and Lawrence Ng also appear. Extensive audio- and visual censoring is frequent, due to the subject matter within a lower rating.

Incredibly weak, although pretty, debut by Tony Au who gave new wave productions such as The Story Of Woo Viet and The Beasts his art directing skills. Au did go on to log much acclaim but pretty much keeping solely within the hypnotic Dream Lovers and the humanistic A Roof With A View. For The Last Affair, he takes his tragic romance to Paris, introducing Carol Cheng (in her first movie role and first awarded movie role) as Ha Ching, a Chinese woman traveling to France with emotional baggage. Namely, a dead marriage and entering the city of romance, she puts all emotions on the line for musician and all out playboy Kwong Ping (an at times oily Chow Yun-Fat) but he's quite happy to have several women going on at once....

The setting is very French, touching less upon clichés but more on picture perfect elegance and at times the material resembles a Yonfan picture. Which is not a good thing and the emotions running high (apparently) makes for a cold viewing experience. Structuring itself around and as an opera, this is not a clever way to drop hints at what's to come as Ha Ching tries to decide where and if she can find romance anywhere. Or someone to hold rather. The psychology passes in terms of being filled with opportunities and watching Chow's Kwong Ping, we try to come to understand if he's just living like the city does or if he's a grade A dickhead. Up to a point we wonder anyway and bringing in poorly developed supporting characters struggling with their careers and emotions, The Last Affair seriously derails into tedium even before its utmost pretentious and terrible ending. It's a new filmmaker indeed, not knowing jack about how to present subtle emotions. It may work for a type of crowd finding substance in any kind of elegance but I feel sorry for you therefore. Pat Ha appears in a supporting role.

Marketed as a sequel to Hard Boiled when released on video in the UK, there exists a valid theory that director Wong Jing might've heard of John Woo's plans for the climax of the classic actioner as that shoot went on for a long time before release in 1992. Eastern Heroes anyway figured that gunplay and a finale set at a hospital warranted the deception, despite being released the year before said classic. Anyway...

Shot on location in Singapore, The Last Blood doesn't represent Wong Jing bringing anything worthwhile to the table as the humour is lame and plotting routine. I bet the overabundance of celebrity jokes (including ones aimed at the celebrities actually in the film) is a riot to Wong but it gets tired fast. Having said that, the proceedings are made much more bearable thanks to action director Blackie Ko who logs some entertaining and effective gory mayhem from the good old days of the heroic bloodshed genre. That genre, headlined by John Woo, came with its share of pale imitators and while The Last Blood is one among them, it doesn't take much to make it a passable, pale imitation. However, it is a bad movie. Andy Lau, Alan Tam, Eric Tsang and Leung Kar Yan stars.

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