My Father is a Hero


Director: Corey Yuen
Year: 1995
Rating: 9.0

This is easily one of my favorite Jet Li films. It combines both great action scenes along with some very poignant touching moments. It is almost a drama broken up by a few terrific action set-pieces. It has a big loopy heart that makes it more than just another action film. Jet Li plays an undercover cop in the Mainland who is assigned to go to HK and infiltrate a gang of thieves. His cover story is that he is a criminal that has broken out of jail. He leaves behind a son and wife who are humiliated by neighbors who think the cover story is the truth. In fact, even the wife and son do not know the truth. The film begins though with about 100 children giving a wushu demonstration in an auditorium. All hopeful no doubt to be future action movie stars. Little do they know that real action skills would no longer be needed in 20 years in Hong Kong films. One of the children is Tze Miu who had teamed up with Jet Li a year earlier in The New Legend of Shaolin. A year older he is even more proficient at martial arts. Jet is late to see his son perform because he is literally bagging a bad guy and then hauls him to the demonstration – whereupon some of his men go after Jet with hatchets. A nice beginning to a terrific film.


After Jet is arrested in front of his wife, son and the neighbors, his captain tells him he is sending him to Hong Kong. “We have many thousands of police stationed in Hong Kong. We just want Hong Kong to be peaceful and prosperous”. He forgot to mention the taking away their freedoms part. It is the old escape with your cell mate routine used so often Cagney would not believe it any more. Though a little more difficult than normal as Jet has to beat up five guard dogs and cross an electrified fence. His fellow escapee  played by Blackie Ko (but named Darkie in the film) gets Jet to Hong Kong where they join a gang headed by a twitchy psychotic always sunglass wearing Yu Rong-guang. He takes bad boss to a new level often beating the crap out of his own men when not throwing them off buildings or shooting them. Their first caper is to buy arms from a Russian dealer and then steal the money back in a fancy restaurant with a lot of glass – all soon to be broken. Sitting inside having coffee is Inspector Fong, the great Anita Mui, and her fellow officer played by Damian Lau. They were husband and wife in The Heroic Trio. The bartender is Corey Yuen who also directs and choreographs the film (along with Yuen Tak). All hell breaks out with a big gun battle and Jet ends up taking Anita as a hostage. And later saves her from falling to her death.



Puzzled by this behavior, Anita's investigation leads her back to his hometown where she meets his son and dying wife and begins to suspect that all is not what it appears. She takes Tze Miu with her back to Hong Kong to find his father. The last thirty minutes is nerve tingling action as Yu Rong-guang kidnaps the boy and Jet has to watch him be tortured so as not to break his cover. From then on it is whiz bang action as Jet, Anita and the son team up to take on the gang that not only has Yu Rong-guang but Ngai Sing and Ken Lo as well. Along with Jet, Tze and Anita who gets in a few kicks there is more fighting talent per square inch than the Super Bowl.


At one point all three are kicking the hell out of Jet. Maybe too much wire-fu in that end fight but still very satisfying. Jet even uses his son as a yoyo to beat up the bad guys - back and forth - punch and back. That will toughen up that kid. None of this overly cautious modern day parenting going on here. China's version of Take Your Child to Work Day. Anita Mui is always such a great presence. She just lifts a film to a higher emotional level just by being there. Even in action films where she is not the main star, whenever she is on the screen that is what you are looking at. She is the heart of this film just as she was in Drunken Master II and Miracles. I still miss her.