Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD EAN: 0601643563343 Format: Color Label: Tai Seng Manufacturer: Tai Seng Publisher: Tai Seng Region Code: 0 Release Date: 2000-06-27 Running Time: 84 Studio: Tai Seng Theatrical Release Date: 1986
This visceral Southeast Asian battle drama is the film John Woo completed just before his commercial breakthrough with A Better Tomorrow in 1987. It was shelved for almost two years and then hastily released, to cash in on that film's startling success. Although not a fully coherent work, it is the film in which the director tried out the operatic, slo-mo approach to action that he perfected in his later pictures, so it's must viewing for Woo-philes. The setup is polished off in a quick prologue, as a squad of Chinese commandos is dispatched to smash a heroin ring in Thailand. The movie is pretty much nonstop action from that point on. The commandos find and kidnap the top drug smuggler, and then flee, pursued by an army of murderous goons. There are several long comic gambling scenes; it's the Deer Hunter's Russian roulette number played with dice instead of guns. Woo has always been a bold borrower of trope he admired in other movies. In this case the best sequence is lifted almost shot-for-shot from one of the Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub samurai movies: a plucky kid digging in the ground for safety when the baddies try to burn him out of his concealment in a grain field. --David Chute
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: A blast of a film from John Woo!! Comment: Yes, you've seen this film a 1000x times before, but not one directed by Mr. Woo! And that makes ALL the difference, bullets fly, explosions rock, it's a blast of a film that any action flick junkie will appreciate. Is it as polished as some of his later work, well of course not, but does that make it any LESS fun, hell no! I bet Chuck Norris wished he starred in this film. Don't listen to those movie snobs who thumb their nose at this film because it's not "The Killer" or "Hard Boiled". It's fun, it's cheese, it's a good time, and with all of the other crap that's released nowadays, that's a blessing. Customer Rating: Summary: Foreshadowing of FUTURE WOO (but not quite there!). Comment: This is obviously a rather early John Woo film, made right before A Better Tomorrow, which was his breakthrough epic. Watching it, I felt like it was a foreshadowing of Bullet in the Head (my personal favorite John Woo flick), but not as refined. It has some great action scenes, such as the Sniper Shot scene (mentioned by another reviewer as well) and the swamp fight against the natives. The massive, unrelenting action scenes will leave you at the edge of your seat: but there's still a problem. Being that it is an earlier Woo flick, it isn't (as I've said) as refined as A Better Tomorrow or Hard-Boiled. Also, it DOES lack Chow Yun Fat. The cohesiveness of the plot/ action/ story/ characters/ etc that is found in his later films is missing in this. Often I was left thinking, "Dood. This doesn't make sense." And thrown in is a scene where basically girls get naked: A VERY Un-Woo scene. I was both shocked and dissapointed to see this scene, but again, it is an earlier film so it shall be excused.
If you liked Bullet in the Head, this will dissapoint you, but I think it's still something to watch if you can call yourself a Woo fan. But if you're not really into the Woo style of things, go rent Full Metal Jacket or something instead.
Customer Rating: Summary: Goodbye, Chinaman Comment: It's Woo's Showgirls, or Hook-take your pick. It's hard to believe he made A Better Tomorrow next. It's even harder to believe he did better work with the likes of Dolph Lundgren. There are hints of things to come, and some pretty good hand-to-hand near the end, but that's the only thing good about it. Well, that and it's mercifully short running time. Customer Rating: Summary: Classic. . . but overdone Comment: When I first saw this film on television, I laughed my pants off. It's one of those movies that you've seen, time and time again, made fun of, due to its poorly timed dubbing and spiratic violence. The picture quality was horrible, which fit its cheap attitude perfectly, and more than three quarters of the movie was spent using extremely primitive sound-effects. Yet, despite these small glitches, the movie seemed to draw forth more of my attention than it deserved. I couldnt help but revel at how consistant John Woo was through his natorious use of explosions, stunts, and hardened drama. The movie didn't glorify violence, however, but made it almost humorously insignificant. The killing rate was undoubtedly outragous, where ten to twenty "bad guys" in a scene would fall to their death as the hero spray's unplotted bullets everywhere. The drama was very low, as well as unbelievable, and the relationship between characters was poorly stimulated. However, this is the beauty of John Woo's films (and action films in general). He expressed each character through pure violence and tension; nothing more. Most of the drama in the movie derived from such violent siduations, and this tactic proves very effective. Because of this, John Woo unfortunately delivered an excess amount of action; to the point of exaustion. This was the main setback, since it lowered the appreciation of John Woo's poetic action sequences greatly. The cinematography quality was on and off, sometimes exceptional and sometimes very very poor. The script was horrible, consisting of cheap one-liners and poorly thought-out reactions. Never the less, I loved this movie not for its basic script and storyline, but for the attitude that the action sets forth (especially the laughs). Call it cheap, call it trash, but any sane action-movie critic out there will call it classic. I would recommend seeing the movie before buying it, but I would definately recommend buying the movie just for the heck of it. Enjoy! Customer Rating: Summary: Whether you like John Woo or not, this one's in the gutter. Comment: This was a truly awful effort, one which should be viewed only as an indicator of how lost John Woo became before he focused his genius on A Better Tomorrow and, even more so, The Killer.
Eddie Ko Hung is terrible in the lead role as a soldier of fortune with a soft spot, all the female actors are atrocious in poorly written roles, the action sequences are mundane and lacking in grace (thanks to a cast of workhorse, completely charmless actors), the violence laughable, the villains completely one-sided, and the cinematography a step back to the horrific '70s.
The worst component of this sick excuse for a film is the child actor known on set only as "Friday", according to accounts by a co-producer of the film. Hong Kong has never been known for naturalistic actors or for paying great attention to subtlety of presentation, but this kid deserves a nomination for worst performance of all time. Perhaps they overdubbed his dialogue, for every line he speaks sounds like a 16-year-old voice actor (or a woman -- as they do in cartoons in Hong Kong) trying to emulate a six-year-old child. His face is a hysterical exaggeration, like a theatrical mask, and his aim-for-the-cutesy posing becomes excessively annoying after a while. I found myself cheering when he's trapped in the flames, groaning when he escapes death, and smirking when he loses his mother. Talk about losing an audience member. This film is the first John Woo work I've seen (and I'd seen all of his mostly brilliant post-1986 work, even Blackjack, before hitting upon this pile of trash) to make me cynical to such a degree.
Thank God John Woo has progressed past this. For if he had remained this kind of a filmmaker producing this kind of junk, he's the one who should have his eyes sewn shut.
