Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD EAN: 0601641011242 Format: Color Label: Tai Seng Video Marketing Manufacturer: Tai Seng Video Marketing Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Tai Seng Video Marketing Region Code: 1 Release Date: 2003-06-17 Running Time: 96 Studio: Tai Seng Video Marketing Theatrical Release Date: 1982
Carry On Pickpocket is a tedious action comedy about lovable sneak thieves who team up with the cops to entrap some mobsters who are making life tough for everyday decent crooks. Sammo Hung (TV's Martial Law does his standard wistful fat-nebbish number--until he's either dancing or fighting, when the joke becomes how surprisingly graceful he is. (Thugs in HK movies have been saying "Hey, fatty" to him, and then paying dearly for it, for quite a few years now.) Some of the pickpocketing scenes, and the later full-bore action stuff, are almost up to Hung's mature standard (Eastern Condors), and for a supposed comedy the movie is often startlingly vicious. For completists only. --David Chute
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: An action-comedy masterpiece from Sammo Comment: Like a lot of Sammo's movies, he is the director and lead actor in this. What sets this apart is that in 1982 Sammo decided to make a modern day kung fu comedy. You have to wonder why he would go away from the brilliant formula he had come up with in old schoool kung fu movies like The Prodigal Son and Warriors Two, but Sammo wanted to make something different, and his different approach led to the Lucky Stars and Police Story movies. The story is about 2 friends whp pickpocket for a living. Sammo is quite the ladies man and the wonderful Deannie Yip plays his girlfriend. Yip is a cop and tells Sammo that she needs his pickpocketing skills to help bring down a crime boss. Sammo agrees, and does so giving his greatest acting performance of his career. At least my favorite performance from him. Sammo does get into a few fights, but his great acting is on display the whole movie. While I laughed out loud more than a few times, Sammo is still very believable when he is acting tough or funny. And talking about tough, the fighting in this movie is BRUTAL. I am a huge kung fu fan, but I can't decide if I liked the acting or fighting better. Sammo comes off as such a real person, and his fighting does too. There is a fight with Dick Wei at the end that is 2 minutes of pure bliss. Don't expect eagle or tiger claw, just fast, hard action choreographed to perfection.
Like I said, Sammo is the star and also directs this movie. This is not unusual in Hong Kong cinema whatsoever. His sidekick in the movie is played by Frankie Chan (the villain from The Prodigal Son). Frankie is also the producer and is best known for doing the music for over 60 films such as Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog and Dance of the Drunken Mantis. He also directed about 20 films.
If you are a fan of Sammo, you MUST see this.
4.5/5
Megastar DVD has good sound and picture quality. A lot of the subtitles you will have to re-translate yourself.
