The Big Boss played by Dick Wei with a
beard and glasses looking like an English professor (though his slapping
of the maid for allowing a fingerprint on his wine glass hints that he is
not) tells Simon that he has a new partner from Vietnam - Jackie Cheung -
and has to train him in the art of killing. Cheung is a hick from the sticks
who acts like he has not eaten in weeks. Their first assignment to kidnap
a mother and her young girl doesn't go as planned as Cheung messes up and
can't catch the girl. Simon has to step in to shoot the woman in the head
and she goes flying back onto a vegetable cart which then rolls down the
street with her bloody body. Sort of amusing in a dark way. A couple other
killings closer to home at the order of Wei and Jacky has a look on his face
that says "What the hell did I get myself into?"
But the money is good to a poor kid from
Vietnam. There are some funny scenes of Jacky as a hick learning the ways
of Hong Kong as well as of the trade of death. He thinks a valet is stealing
the car and roughs him up or bets $10 on a game of darts not realizing that
means $100,000. That leads to a fight. Another deadly hit, another day of
fun as we have a Pretty Woman montage moment after his first big payoff
as he shops while a cheerful song plays but then it morphs to Jacky in a
series of killings. So not quite Pretty Woman. He also begins to fall for
Sheila Chan, a massuse. It bounces back and forth between violent scenes
and sweet ones, between murder and gradual male bonding between the two
men. It is a little strange. In one short scene it looks
like Simon is teaching Jacky to shoot a sniper rifle - a few tips -
then the camera shows that he just shot someone below.
Eventually trouble does come to this happy
little family as Elaine Lui reappears (finally, I missed her). She has tracked
down Lieh after all this time and has the goods on him plus a secret that
will get him killed by the boss. She is able to pressure him to work with
her against the murder syndicate. It becomes a test of loyalties and brotherhood
as Simon gets orders to kill his old partner and Jacky gets orders to kill
Simon. What is a boy to do. What matters most - loyalty to the boss (Dick
Wei) or to your sifu or friend. Most of the Bloodshed in Heroic Bloodshed
is saved for the final twenty minutes which turns into cooker pressure of
killing that plays out in a house with loads of minions trying to kill their
targets as they jump from room to room. It is a terrific action scene of
mainly gunplay but you know there has to be a physical confrontation with
Dick Wei. We would want our money back if there wasn't. Five terrific actors in
the cast raises this up a few notches.
Rating: 7.5
