Secret Police
Reviewed by Jack Sobjack
I was a bit apprehensive before my first viewing
of Secret Police. With Moon Lee and Alex Fong the stars of this film what
could go wrong? Well, anyone that has seen the classic Angel trilogy (especially
2 & 3) will understand my trepidation towards watching it. As much as
I liked the Angel films I can’t forget the sequels left Moon mysteriously
absent in the finales. Instead, Alex Fong got the spotlight. Now I have nothing
against Alex Fong and I thought he did a good job in those films but being
the Moon devotee that I am I felt the filmmakers used very bad judgement
by not using her more than they did. So this is why I had a bad feeling about
Secret Police.
Now I can honestly say I was right…in part. About 5 minutes into this film
it became apparent to me that this was more or less Alex Fong’s show but
Moon does have some bright moments. And she has a couple of cool fight scenes
like the one near the beginning where she takes out two thieves with a broom
or the finale where she’s actually present to take out a small army of gangsters.
In Secret Police, Alex Fong pretty much
hangs around gangsters, stresses out his girlfriend with his reluctance to
commit and embarrasses his father (who’s a cop) when he gets into trouble.
Moon Lee plays his sister who’s also a cop that is transferred to the station
her father works at. Moon and Alex don’t get along so well. In fact, Moon
can’t stand her brother or his lifestyle.
Tragedy strikes when their father (Ku Feng) is murdered in cold blood by
a hired hitman (Billy Chow). When Moon visits her dying father in the hospital
good old Alex shows up a moment too late and she rips him a new rear. It
really is a moving scene. Moon shows incredible talent as she goes from the
deepest despair from the loss of her father to the unbridled rage towards
her brother.
Moon vows to avenge her father’s death. There’s much more to this film
but I won’t spoil it. There’s a reason this thing is called Secret Police.
Appearing in this film also are Jimmy Lee/Lung Fong as the main bad guy,
Shum Wai as the father’s police partner and Yip San as Alex’s girlfriend.
Unless I really hate a film, I don’t like wasting time focusing on the negative
aspects of a it (that should be saved for the discussion boards) so I won’t
go into some of it’s flaws. I will say the general HK cinema fan might not
get much out of this but if you are a Moon fan you’ll certainly appreciate
her performance. She looks great in her fight scenes and basically outclasses
everyone in the acting department. Now some of you are probably rolling your
eyes and thinking ‘there he goes again…’ but you must remember something:
This review was written for Moon fans by a Moon fan.
My rating for this film: 6.0