theowinthrop
I'm a little surprised I gave this a "6", but it a smidge better than average.I'm not a fan of the Hong Kong - Korean - Japanese - Singapore "kung fu" or martial arts films. Most are basically garbage, but then most of the westerns that were made in Hollywood are not of the HIGH NOON or STAGECOACH or SHANE standard. But it is instructive to watch one from start to finish, and to try to comprehend what is going on.Basically this is a tragedy of how the happiness of four friends is destroyed by power and greed. And the greed is centered in the good old U.S.A. (more about that later). Tango and Koo are pals and Tango is in love with Blue Szeto (who is also a friend of Koo). Koo is also getting married to another friend, Grace - the wedding to be held in Miami, Florida on a yacht. Most of the story is set in Hong Kong, but it has global implications.Grace works out of a Hong Kong think tank for the C.I.A., so they are interested in who she knows. We see them spying on her and on Blue Szeto. That ought to tip us off about the view of the film maker (and possibly his audience) to the U.S.A. Since this film was made in 1998 - prior to the disaster of the three middle east wars - it actually is the view of the U.S.A. from Asia in the course of the more benign Clinton Administration! The C.I.A. comes across in this film as conniving, vicious, short sided, and corrupt. When the villain behind the actual crimes and scheme here becomes known, the C.I.A. is told to lay off because, "It may be good for Wall Street!" That is a quote from the film! A project that was being handled by the C.I.A. Hong Kong office is facing possible destruction by government defunding. It is a method of making supermen agents out of operatives. Our four young friends and lovers know of the system, and Grace actually is seen defending it from cut-backs.The wedding in Miami turns tragic, when Grace and Szeto are isolated on a boat launch which is captured by a woman who works for a terrorist for hire named Alien. Szeto is kidnapped (we later learn there were other kidnappings of C.I.A. people) by helicopter, and Alien shoots Grace to death.Based on what they know, Tango and Koo offer themselves to the C.I.A. scientist on the project as guinea pigs in an effort to find Alien. They have already contacted the person at Langley to get his help, but he is one of these unsympathetic bastards in upper bureaucratic positions that always insist on moving as little or as stupidly as possible (think of Ned Beatty in the comedy HOPSCOTCH). This one even looks sinister with a pointed beard.The two heroes do go through a crash course in becoming supermen. Then they invade the enemy headquarters, where Alien is working with a scientist). This is also one of those films where the amoral assassin and his partners remain (until near the end) one step ahead of everyone else. It turns out that the man behind the scheme is a big time media mogul (a Murdoch-clone, or Turner-clone) with a Jewish name (Rosenbloom), who is scheming to use subliminal messages sent over his satellite system throughout Asia to cause massive rioting and unrest for his own fun and profit (he even is quoted as saying, "Should be fun!"). Remember, this is supposed to be good for Wall Street. I am trying to figure out how - it's never explained but taken for granted.To add to the problem of the story, the C.I.A. idiot who is a secondary villain arrests Szeto, Koo, and Tango because they have "gummed up the works" (although they actually broke open the case and rescued all the kidnapped C.I.A. personnel). In a crazy moment Koo manages to break free, grabs a gun, and in defending himself shoots several C.I.A. agents (to the applause of the audience I imagine). His adrenaline is up, as is that weird untried training system. Tango has been handcuffed to a bench, but Szeto tries to stop Koo, and he accidentally kills her.Koo escapes. Tango is "treated" at Langley to forget much, but to be used to kill Koo for murdering Szeto. The last half hour of the film is Koo trying to reach out to Tango (at least temporarily) to stop the scheme and to get Alien.The acting is tolerable, and towards the end even a trifle sad in seeing what the C.I.A. did to Tango and Koo. The story, aside from going into bizarre heights to attack our secret police agency (there are subtler ways to do so) actually is coherent. Interestingly Mr. Rosenbloom is never seen paying for his share of the crimes as his cohorts do - maybe Wall Street (far healthier in 1998 than now) protected one of its own!!
movieman_kev
Aften Alien kills C.S's wife, C.S. and his friend Tango go through V.R. training and try to go after Alien, who has a plan for subliminal messages at the World Cup. This film is badly acted, and it didn't help that a lot of the movie is in garbled English either. It's very hard to tell why it was nominated for best film editing as that's one of the other aspects of the movie that I didn't like. I was let down by this one DVD Extras: Three making-of featurettes; music video; Star bios; Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "Extreme Crises", "Enter the Eagles", and "A Hero Never Dies" (all 3 of which are better than this) My Grade: D
iron monkey
I was very impressed with this movie. It has all the elements of a entertaining movie. Great action, awesome stunts and a dramatic storyline and the acting was pretty good. I highly recommend this movie for everyone not just HK movie fans. If you like Matrix then you will really enjoy this movie. I was pleasantly surprised by movie enough to want to buy it for my movie collection.
Dwight
I bought this on DVD, having very little knowledge of the movie. The story is not the most original, but forget all of that. Check this movie out for some great fights and action. It was nominated for a Hong Kong Film Award for best action choreography, best film editing, best sound, and it deserved it. You will enjoy.
