The Magic Amethyst
Director: Lee Tso-nam
Year: 1990
Rating: 4.0
With the exception
of Sibelle Hui dressed up beautifully as a Hindi princess and much of the
story taking place in India, this movie is worth skipping out on like a man
running from his bondsman. It is a mess and Sibelle wisely only is in it
for as short a period as legal. It does have a huge amount of gunplay and
hundreds of people are gunned down, but the action is just abysmally done.
It begins on the streets of HK with two
Indians being murdered by Sibelle, but not before they give a Buddha statue
to a passing couple (Alexander Lo and Tsang Siu-yin). The couple are told
that if they deliver it to a priest in India they will be rewarded with $100,000.
Lots of bad guys who belong to this religious cult chase after them. The statue
is the key to a huge treasure.
Before long they depart to Madras and
then Banglagore. It was kind of fun seeing HK action on the streets of India.
There is this one-pitched gun battle that takes place on the steps of an Indian
temple that was pretty good. In India the couple meets the priest who looks
like Yanni. Extras must be very cheap in India because there are a
number of action scenes in which the falling bodies are uncountable! Perhaps
this was a big smash in Bombay, but is very sub-par for a HK film.
According to Asian Cult Cinema, Kent Cheng
directed this fairly dreadful film. They are wrong of course as they usually
were. According to HKMDB it is directed by Lee Tso-nam who has directed a
few solid films – Blood Brothers for the Shaws, Beauty Investigators, Kung
Fu Wonder Child and A Life of Ninja. Ok, maybe not great films but not a pile-up
like this one.
