There's a moral and ethic dilemma hidden in the title of this Taylor Wong helmed Shaw Brother's production. See if you can spot it. A stab at the courtroom drama, centering around rapist Tien (Wilson Lam), someone the law has difficulty nailing down despite violating a model (Joey Wong) and her sister (Lau Mei-Gwan). As defense counsel he gets Wing-Man (Carol Cheng), the girlfriend of a cop (Alex Man) who offers up a opinion not matching her professional ethics...

Effective when it is exploitative (the rape of the sister has Tien throwing buckets of paint at her, taking place amongst strobe lights to boot), Taylor Wong stages a fairly competent but standard drama. Questions brought up are valid concerns but you do start to get pissed off when victims, while under distress, can't seem to say the right thing in court. But then the movie wouldn't be feature length anyway so characters acting foolish is something Wong embraces seemingly. Performances are spotty, with Joey Wong largely disappearing by the half way point but Carol Cheng proves to have a commanding presence when her character is in her element. The romantic pairing between her and Alex Man seems a little far-fetched but their relationship does come to an effective closure when Taylor Wong stages his final moments in the courtroom. Moments that unfortunately includes an over the top melodramatic speech but also a quick outburst of rather shocking bloodshed. Law Or Justice? seems to leave a mark on you therefore but one imprint doesn't save it. Paul Chun and Ti Lung also appears.

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Overly long but passable bio-pic about Lee Rock (Andy Lau), one of the most famous corrupted cops in Hong Kong. This first installment out of two follows him beginning in the 1940s up till the 60s in a system where honesty is not the way to progress. With the help of his elder superior and mentor Chan (Kwan Hoi-San), Lee rises swiftly through the ranks, much to the dismay of sergeant Ngan Tung (Paul Chun)

In the wake of the success story that was To Be Number One, the trend became the true life bio-pic and while Lee Rock ranks way above the lackluster trendsetter, interest is merely sporadic. Judging by the box-office, it was either an effort that will connected to Hong Kong or in fact Andy Lau's name drew people in despite this Lawrence Lau helmed effort feeling overall empty to the Hong Kong people even? It helps that Andy Lau puts in a commanding performance and the veteran cast in mostly sync sound dialogue brings colour to the piece. The ending does spark interest for the sequel that was unleashed the same year. Chingmy Yau, Cheung Man, Ng Man-Tat, Lung Fong and James Tien co-stars.

A multiple nominee at the Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Picture but it was Kwan Hoi-San that bagged the only award as Best Supporting Actor that year.

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Legal Innocence represents one of several occasions where Hong Kong filmmakers have utilized the same true life crime for multiple productions. More recently Human Pork Chop and There Is A Secret In My Soup marked such an event and during the Category III boom of the 90s, more specifically in 1993, Legal Innocence and Remains Of A Woman tackled the same horrific crime. In Cha Chuen Yee's (The Rapist, Once Upon A Time In Triad Society) version, we see Cecilia Yip as Shirley, a Christian who finds sympathy and possibility of redemption in sentenced murderer Patrick (Francis Ng). His stories convinces her that he's even innocent of the murder of girlfriend Brenda and it's instead the jealous party in the form of Kitty (Ivy Leung) that orchestrated what led to the finding of a corpse corroding in acid. A courtroom drama plays out and tests the newly found love between Shirley and Patrick. But characters behind the scenes, most notably a cop (Anthony Wong), are convinced of other truths...

Cha Chuen Yee has the Cat III rating to play around with and just like the Clarence Fok directed Remains of A Woman, he spikes the gruesome-meter at times and directs with an aggressive style. While he has a fine pairing in Cecilia Yip and Francis Ng, Cha opts for hysterical melodramatics and a strange, almost bizarre character arc for Yip's Shirley who longs for love and seemingly desperately throws herself at the mercy of a potential killer she's known only for a short time. Yip and Ng bring some fine subtleties during their initial scenes but Legal Innocence soon start to resemble many other similar efforts of the time. In its favour compared to Remains Of A Woman, it deals largely with the aftermath in combination with the flashback segments of the events leading up to the murder but Fok has one up on Cha due to Carrie Ng's undeniably powerful and over the top performance (that got her a Taiwan Golden Horse Award). Legal Innocence is just over the top without the truly lasting effect. Yet, it deserves a wee bit of acclaim for what it does, mostly straight faced, and few Cat III movies of the time could be associated with positive remarks from any critic. Paul Chun and Hui Siu-Hung appear as lawyers.

Less of the visual splendor that was Erotic Ghost Story II, frequent cinematographer and even actor Peter Ngor creates via Legendary Couple an emulation. And that's being nice about it because obviously Natural Born Killers had something to do with this Hong Kong creation. At the same time, Ngor's particular mad mix of social commentary, romance and violence is as unashamedly improper. It's an assault on the senses that is mild compared to Oliver Stone's movie but Legendary Couple is probably a lot more fun in its horrid ways. More importantly though, less pretentious. Simon Yam stars as disgruntled and bullied worker Tin Laap who is being innocently accused of robbing a large amount of cash from the company he works for. Joining the legions of people protesting against the corporate elite and injustice HIS WAY, it leads to the kidnapping of the spoiled daughter (Chingmy Yau) of his boss and to the creation of our Hong Kong Mickey and Mallory...

With Yam soiling himself, being tortured by police while we cut to his wife in labour who eventually passes away, there's a form of cartoonish excess here that may have decided to take itself deadly seriously. However with a completely incompetent police force on the hunt for Tin Laap and forgotten subplots about that very police force, Ngor simply comes off as someone not knowing, not bothering and not caring. The transformation in characters carelessly happens, so does romance and bringing in cheerful, light tangents concerning the raising of Tin Laap's infant son, other robbers donating basically a weapons cache to the rookie robber couple, Legendary Couple really does go for transforming into something in an actual way. In other words, a rulebreaking, gory actioner with no connection to logic, reality or attempts to satisfy those looking for actual merits. It's just a concoction by a filmmaker wishing to have a little fun. But even if he didn't intend to, Legendary Couple can still breath as a strangely watchable crap film with little to none signs of a cinematographer in the directing chair.

Lau Kar Leung revisits key elements from The Spiritual Boxer and The Shadow Boxing but delivers more polished results in Legendary Weapons Of China, one of his more offbeat martial arts films. That however isn't a thread that runs through as the sillier, in the best of ways, first half with the spirit boxers and magic fighters displaying their prowess in the quest for the supposed traitor Lui Gung (Lau Kar Leung) serves a purpose for the serious second.

Lau has proven adept at communicating a serious message in the midst of fighting (see Challenge Of The Masters) and here he deconstructs the notion of belief in stopping the foreign guns with Chinese magic. It's a developing truth that the Chinese aren't able to stop but it's here one must rely on the strictly Chinese ways (i.e. the 18 Legendary Weapons Of China), despite shortcomings against the foreign influence.

This abrupt change of mood may not sit well with certain viewers, nor the fact that we see little traditional action for the longest of time. However, it's a clear structure decision on Lau Kar Leung's behalf that works tremendously as we have great fun with Hsiao Hou, Lau Kar Wing, Fu Sheng and feel equally engrossed by Lau Kar Leung's central, serious performance subsequently. When Lau does make the screen explode into action, and it doesn't get old saying this, we get an exhilarating display of weapons choreography, mainly in the two-part finale. In a clever touch, presumably all 18 weapons are employed and are even identified in on-screen text. It may take a little while to see Legendary Weapons Of China as a great work of substance, one that Tsui Hark definitely was influenced by when creating the Once Upon A Time In China series, but Lau strikes his desired balance admirably well. Also with Gordon Lau.

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A cheap film about cheap films, this Category III rated portrayal of the slight rise and hard fall of Chan Hung (Liu Chi-Tak), a Mainland girl turned adult movie star adheres to the usual genre requirements (including softcore sex and gang rape to pass the time. Or rather get the time up to 90 minutes) but director Siu Bong possesses some unusually sharp wit considering what movie he's making. Lead Liu is a suitably ditsy and ignorant main character who thinks of herself as a star after appearing once on the motel TV circuit in one their available "blue" films. Thinking initially her big debut might be pirated already, her actual 35 millimeter debut goes nowhere as well. The scene where she's trying to get in on a staged threesome is wonderfully funny and features Stuart Ong in basically a sex cameo. Nice gig if you can get it while also Siu Bong makes it a decent jab at the cheapness of the business. Have a sneaky feeling it ain't that exaggerated. Other off-beat highlights includes a gang of triads trying to turn in illegal immigrant Chan Hung to the authorities but even the church won't condemn her for having no Hong Kong I.D. Oh well, they rape her instead and bizarrely enough the film goes out on a positive high! Director Siu follows with some of his utmost off-beat touches here, injecting a theme of celebrating and utilizing Hong Kong from the Mainland girls perspective. Expect it to make little sense but The Legend of An Erotic Movie Star scores (and showcases) points.

The poster spelled out the title as The Ledgen Of A Erotic Movie Star.

The Hammer/Shaw Brothers co-production that went into the direction that made sense, blending gothic horror with Asian horror sensibilities and a bit of trademark martial arts. The end result is an immensely enjoyable, goofy little time where director Roy Ward Baker manages to strike the pitch perfect, cheesy tone throughout. Monk Kah (Chan Shen) seeks up Dracula (John Forbes-Robertson) in Transylvania as he wants help to resurrect the Seven Golden Vampires again. Dracula agrees but turns the tables by adopting the shape of Kah and instead carries out the plan for his own benefit. In Chungking, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is lecturing on the legend of a cursed Chinese village that is terrorized by what is now six golden vampires, getting little else but scoffs from his listening audience. But one member of the audience, Hsi Ching (David Chiang) knows Van Helsing speaks of the truth and two join with his seven brothers (and one sister played by Shuh Szu while one of the brothers is Lau Kar-Wing), the son of Van Helsing (Robin Stewart) and Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege) on an expedition to eradicate the curse once and for all...

Peter Cushing anchors a seriousness when speaking of the then unseen "horrors" of the film, superbly selling whatever silly dialogue he is forced to utter but even if the intention of the film was something more crap your pants scary, The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires has now turned into something more wonderfully valid. A fast paced piece of exploitation where the plot of seven brothers (and one sister) play well into the genre staples of martial arts as they all carry different weapons. Squaring off against the quite badly done sights of rotting vampires fighting and skipping casually about, it's not a "problem" that the make-up is painfully obvious but the way the hordes walk about is so delightfully charming. There's no hopping here, which could've made for dread, and furthermore there's crudely inserted romance that plays little in the film's favour. Yet it's all so cuddly and loveable (even the bats on strings), with rather wonderful interaction between Cushing and Shaw star David Chiang (who handles his English pronunciation well). Featuring a fair contribution from fight choreographers from Lau Kar-Leung and Tong Gaai and multiple looks at vampire breakdown-effects, the latter is certainly effects work the filmmakers didn't want to NOT showcase. Released as The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula in America and at 75 minutes in length, that edit is sped up into incoherency instead and favours horror/exploitation elements to the point of boredom. Gathering them in an extended opening reel doesn't set the tone. Hong Kong release title was Dracula And The 7 Golden Vampires and the Warner Brothers dvd release under the original title is fully uncut.

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Billy Chung's debut, a gangster saga spanning 30 or so years (ending somewhere in the 1970s) and detailing the rise of brothers Ho (Ray Lui) and Hoi (Kent Cheng) in the triads. Starting as coolies under Master Wong (Michael Chan) and running the paper printing, betting and cocaine business eventually, the two brothers are soon torn apart as well. Despite above average production values and compelling gangster violence, there's never really anything interesting or out of the ordinary in Chung's vision. The longer it runs (a way too generous 2 hours), it turns downright spotty in terms of conveying the narrative. Ray Lui, who at this time apparently needed to be in any epic movie much thanks to his horrible turn in To Be Number One (which still is the rightful benchmark for these gangster epics movies so you can imagine the quality) and Kent Cheng do sufficient work but their bond is accentuated via melodrama that rings false when it occurs. Also with Tommy Wong, Nina Li, Kenneth Tsang and William Ho.

Wong Jing was enjoying financial success during the new wave martial arts movies in the 90s but this Wuxia starring Aaron Kwok flopped at the time of release. Not that Wong Jing's efforts deserves any kind of recognition here though. The cinematography on occasion shines but whenever Wong is in charge of the narrative, the movie sinks as he relies on his usual tiring comedic shtick that for once even the Hong Kong audience didn't want. What makes The Legend Of The Liquid Sword a passable time sporadically is Lau Shung Fung's action directing that comes out on par with most of what you saw during the time and that's not a bad thing. Too bad at 83 minutes, the film is still a chore to get through. Chingmy Yau, Derek Wan, Anita Yuen, Gloria Yip, Norman Chu, Julian Cheung, Gordon Lau and Cheung Man also appear.