Owl vs Bumbo
Director: Sammo Hung
Year: 1984
Rating: 5.0
Wow – Sammo Hung
and Michelle Yeoh – two of HKs greatest action stars in the same film! What
a treat this film should be . . . right? Well, as the commercial goes – not
exactly. For the most part, the only memorable thing about this film is
that it was the very first sighting of Michelle in a HK film.
Michelle was born in Ipoh, Malaysia and later
went to study in England. Later she came back to Malaysia and was pressured
by her mother to enter the Miss Malaysia contest. Much to her surprise,
she won at the age of 21. This brought her to the attention of D&B films
and they put her in a commercial with Jackie Chan. The commercial got a good
reception and D&B then had Michelle star in this film. Actually not star
– she has the fourth amount of screen time in the film. And she has no action
scenes. This was before Michelle became the Goddess of HK action.
The film itself is really a slight effort from Sammo – it just doesn’t
go anywhere. It has a few good moments – such as Sammo doing a nice soft-shoe
routine and a bit of action – but for the majority of the film it just wanders
about without any focus whatsoever.
Sammo (Bumbo) and George Lam (Owl) are partners
in crime and they scam some triad big shot out of a load of money and decide
to retire. Three years later they both receive letters from Stanley Fung
in which he informs them that he has proof of all their criminal activity
and unless they do exactly what he says – he will turn it over to the cops.
Fung is an ex-cop himself and is trying to get the goods on the same triad
leader that Sammo and George scammed. Sounds good so far, but it never takes
off.
So the first thing he has them do is report to a social services center
where they are trying to teach young kids the skills to get jobs. Deannie
Yip is the administrator and Michelle is one of the teachers. The kids are
a bunch of surly beasts and the film quickly devolves into To Sir with Love
as they straighten the kids out. And Sammo romances Deannie and George takes
up with Michelle. And until the last fifteen minutes of the film the plot
to get the triad leader is forgotten. For the most part very dull stuff –
except for a good Sammo fight near the end.
Michelle doesn’t get to do any fighting – in fact they have her crying
her eyes out because the kids are being nasty to her! Do some Wing Chun
on them Michelle -show them who is the Madam in the class! Yes Madam.
The good thing to come out of this film is that she became a friend of
Sammo. And the next year when Sammo and Dickson Poon (head of D&B) came
up with the idea of doing a film about two tough female cops, Sammo remembered
that Michelle had a dance background and thought to himself – “well if she
can dance – we can fake having her fight”. Michelle took it from there –
decided that she didn’t want to fake it and a star was born.
My rating for this film: 5.0
