Millionaire Cop
Director: Cheung Gon-man
Year: 1993
Rating: 7.0
Much to my surprise I found myself guffawing throughout
this Wong Jing produced comedy-action film. The emphasis is very much on
the comedy but there are a couple action scenes choreographed by Yuen Tak
that are very good. Usually, Wong Jing's comedy leaves me in a stupor but
this one with a script from Dennis Chan is at times very funny and at other
times silly enough to keep me engaged. Not sophisticated humor by any means
as penis and breast size are subjects of mirth as is a hilarious lap dance
and a perverted groper. It stars Aaron Kwok, Ng Man-tat and Deric Wan along
with the perfection of Maggie Cheung and Chingmy Yau. Co-incidentally, I
just watched Legend of the Liquid Sword also starring Aaron, Chingmy and
Deric. I wonder whether Wong Jing had hopes of making Deric into a comedy
star. It didn't work out if so. Kwok is rather charming here, happy to poke
fun at his image and at one point after dust falls on him to look just like
his character in Savior of the Soul, Silver Fox. Chor Yuen who has a role
as a cop also pokes fun at himself thinking he is the Black Rose after being
conked on the head. It is all around silliness but much of it lands and was
understandable to this Gweilo.
Kwok and Ng Man-tat are police partners. The Odd Couple. Ng Man-tat with
seven children, unpaid bills and a reputation for being chicken. Kwok is
the handsome stud who gets roses thrown to him as he motorcycles to work
in the morning; Ng gets cups of coffee thrown at him. They are after a pedophile
pervert of school girls and both disguise themselves as such - Ng with pony
tails. They chase him but he gets away and so Ng says he needs a break and
goes to play mahjong. He sees the pervert in there and handcuffs him to himself.
Then a hold up by a group of thugs takes place and the long-haired leader
not knowing which is the cop and which is the crook cuts off the hands of
both of them. A big action scene follows and ends up in one of those classic
bamboo scaffolding fights like the one in Blonde Fury. The brother of the
long-haired leader is killed in a fall but he escapes and swears revenge.
Kwok gets assigned to go undercover as the son of a billionaire and tells
his sweet, demure, shy cleanliness-obsessed girlfriend played by Chingmy
Yau that he needs to go to China on an assignment. The real son of the billionaire
(Dennis Chan) is Deric who gets a job as a clerk and Ng goes undercover as
the janitor and a chair. At one point he covers himself up and pretends to
be a chair. Needless to say three women sit on him and move about with Ng
trying to hold back underneath. One of the women says "It's moving". "It
is a massage chair from Japan". "A little secretion Ng admits later to Kwok.
One of them was Maggie Cheung who is an Executive Secretary and has one small
phobia - round things. Whenever she sees round she loses all her inhibitions
and jumps the closest man and then forgets about it later. Even her house
has nothing round - even the oranges. Aaron blows a bubble. Yowza. Maggie
goes into a sexual frenzy. It is a side of Maggie we don't see often. She
looked like she was having great fun with it.
Ng Man-tat had his hand sewn back on but of course it was the wrong hand
and every time Chingmy - who got a job at the company by her cousin Kingdom
Yuen - comes close his hand loses control. Aaron as the boss has to convince
Chingmy that he is not her boyfriend and at the same time he begins to court
Maggie and we get a funny musical video with him singing. It is all played
for laughs but the long-haired killer keeps trying - once on an ice ink.
When he shaves his head I went holy shit, Underneath the hair is the great
Xiong Xin-xin. A very solid fight at the end with the girls tied up high
ready to fall, Ng and Kingdom stuck together with a bomb between them and
Aaron fighting Xiong Xin-xin. Maybe this just caught me on the right day,
but I found the whole thing goofy and delightful.
My rating for this film: 7.0
