Don’t Give a Damn (1995)

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Don’t Give a Damn (1995)

A horribly misjudged action comedy from Sammo Hung which is really quite repugnant. With his credibility on the slide in the early 90s, Sammo seemingly turned on his audience. The title says it all. It shows Sammo at his most vitriolic; it’s anti-Japanese, anti-youth culture, misogynistic, sweary (with F-words and C-bombs littered everywhere), and racist – almost proudly so. The final act sees co-stars Yuen Biao and Takeshi Kaneshiro in black face, supposedly acting as “chiggers” and employing just about every black American stereotype imaginable. It’s a sequence of such unbelievable horror that you would think we’re dealing with a …

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The Champions (1983)

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The Champions (1983)

Football has always been notoriously hard to capture accurately and dramatically on film, somewhat proven by the unlikely war romp Escape to Victory (which featured the strange pairing of Sylvester Stallone and Pelé). This Hong Kong comedy comes in the wake of Escape to Victory and utilises the superb ball control skills of footy fan Yuen Biao, playing a naive but proud country boy who makes it big in the competitive and lucrative world of soccer. His arch nemesis is Dick Wei’s Football King, who acts more like a mafia boss; chomping on big cigars in nightclubs, fixing matches and …

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Tiger on the Beat (1988)

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Tiger on the Beat (1988)

Having built a highly credible reputation masterminding traditional kung fu action at Shaw Brothers, Lau Kar-leung gets the opportunity to wrestle with a contemporary setting for this Hong Kong actioner. The result is a gritty crime film which is occasionally absurd but always entertaining. Reckless, slang-talking CIA officer Chow Yun-fat is teamed with blue-collar kung fu whiz Conan Lee to sniff out the Triad perpetrators of a giant coke ring, and an informant’s sister is their only lead. A brash performance from Chow Yun-fat is hammy but likable, while Conan Lee’s bland cop buddy provides the film’s muscle. Lau brilliantly adapts his …

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The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

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The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

Michael Carreras – former head of British studio Hammer Films – instigated this martial arts-fused appropriation of the Dracula myth with the Shaw Brothers at the height of the early 70s kung fu boom in the west. Shot entirely in Hong Kong, this was Hammer’s spirited attempt to move away from the type of Gothic horror which had made them famous throughout the 1950s and 60s. The gamble didn’t pay off: the film flopped and Hammer were bankrupt a few years later. In Hong Kong, however, the film can be seen as something of a forerunner to the unique brand …

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Ninja Death II (1987)

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Ninja Death II (1987)

The second part is a more measured continuation of the story although it retains some of the first film‘s madness. Following a brief recap, the story flashes back to detail the fraught formative years of Tiger’s vagabond master. He is one of three Japanese brothers – each possessing the mark of the Plumb Ninja – who were taught a deadly royal ninja technique while living under the tyranny of a cruel Grandmaster. One of the brothers shacks up with a Japanese Princess and bears a child (Tiger), which seems to make the Grandmaster angry, so he sends his best ninja …

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Profile: Yuen Biao

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Profile: Yuen Biao

Date of birth: July 26, 1957 (Hong Kong)

Real name: Ha Ling-tsan

Other names: Ha Ling Chan, Ha Ling Chun, Hsia Ling Jun Biao, Yuan Biao, Bill Yuen, Yuen Biu, Jimmy Yuen Biao

Occupation: Actor, action director, producer, director, stuntman

Style: Kung fu

Biography: Yuen Biao is a veteran martial arts actor who has appeared in over 130 films and eight TV series. He is most famous internationally for his 1980s action comedies with childhood friends Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Despite his fantastic on-screen physicality – particularly in acrobatics – and a number of roles as the leading man, he is still primarily known …

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Profile: Moon Lee Choi-fung

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Profile: Moon Lee Choi-fung

Date of birth: February 14, 1965 (Hong Kong)

Other names: Lee Choi-fong

Occupation: Actor, dance teacher

Style: Ballet

Biography: Moon Lee is a retired television and film actor known for her dominant role in the so-called ‘girls with guns’ sub-genre of female-led Hong Kong action films, produced during the 1980s and 90s. Lee Choi-fung was born in Hong Kong. At the age of six, the Lee family moved to Taiwan where her father owned a business. The family returned to Hong Kong when Lee was 12 years old. She continued her keen interest in ballet, piano, modern dance and acting at middle school. Following a …

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The Tuxedo (2002)

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The Tuxedo (2002)

The target audience for The Tuxedo is somewhat ambiguous; too gory and convoluted for a really young crowd, and despairingly stupid for older viewers. The plot sees Jackie Chan‘s unassuming chauffeur don a magical tuxedo providing him with computer-generated special powers, ideal for combating a dastardly baron planning to spike the nation’s water supply with genetically modified spiders. The comedy set-pieces fall flat. An extended James Brown routine will leave you baffled and a tad disturbed. The action is just as shocking. This was Jackie Chan’s first fully-fledged endorsement of effects-led set-pieces and it’s a muddled experiment, with director Kevin …

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Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)

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Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)

In a most vivid and exciting crossover, Sammo Hung blends his customary traditional kung fu antics with supernatural horror. The film is credited for being the first major success of its kind, featuring as it does walking corpses, hopping vampires, evil spirits and a bag of other tricks. It’s all done with great humour, too, which means the surreal special effects and dodgy prosthetics escape any real scrutiny. Plus, the kung fu action is some of Sammo’s finest; an amazing tea-shop brawl and a Monkey Fist finale being the ultimate showstoppers. The slapstick story sees Sammo as ‘Courageous’ Cheung, the …

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Cheetah on Fire (1992)

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Cheetah on Fire (1992)

Action yarn filmed back-to-back with Crystal Hunt and utilising the same cast, crew and locations. This begins in Hong Kong where the local law enforcement screw up a joint investigation with CIA officers when their prime suspect (Shing Fui-on) escapes police custody during a gun battle with some gangsters. Gordon Liu sports a Tarantino suit and wild hair to play a big shot bastard – the kind of thug who bonks a prostitute while undergoing surgery on a bullet wound – who wants Shing’s computer chip to sell to a foreign buyer. Donnie Yen plays a tempestuous but honourable supercop flown …

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