I know I should not take so much pleasure
from a B action Hong Kong film that is as dumb as a piece of plywood and
totally ridiculous but there is something about these B films that just make
me smile. They have no budget but they have empty fields, abandoned housing
and storage areas along with a lot of weapons and male extras in suits ready
to fall down - some in a bang up way. I don't know where they got their supply
of hand grenades and rifle launchers but when they explode they all give
off a yellow bellow of smoke and do no damage. Get your money back. Clearly,
they barely have a script and just write in shootout here, and here, and
here and let's have three shootouts to end the film. And they are all idiotic.
I have no idea how many baddies get killed - a hundred, maybe more
but enough to free up a lot of housing in the city.
I keep thinking how can the Big Boss afford so many men. The choreography
is enough to fill a stadium - seven guys and a girl all killing like crazy
and all being choreographed and now and then they run out of ammo and have
to resort to kung-fu. It isn't pretty choreography but there sure is a lot
of it. Much of it is the bad guys missing their targets and getting killed
- or standing there with their guns on someone - and getting killed. Dozens
and dozens. I wonder how many times some of the extras had to be killed in
the film.
Not a great cast but a very solid one. It begins with a corrupt senior police
officer signing off on a cargo that has come into the airport. But the Six
Dragons hear about it and hijack it killing loads. The Six Dragons are not
an official band - just guys who get together now and then to make some money
and kill people. They are the good guys in the film. Among them are Chin
Kar-lok, Tsai Hung (in about 100 kung fu films), Chiang Tao (in about 200
kung fu films) and three lesser known actors - one (Chiu Ying-hong) who does
the choreography. They steal the goods, get paid and hand it over to a third
party. They think the boxes are contraband but learn that it is guns and
drugs. This pisses them off. Not because they are against drugs and guns
but because they were not paid enough for that. Again, these are the good
guys.
Their leader (Tsai Hung) demands more money and after an insane shootout
in a labyrinth of empty buildings is captured and tortured to reveal who
the other five dragons are. He refuses. A week later his sister (Kara Hui
Ying-hung) begins to worry about him and gathers the others plus her romantic
angle in the film, Chin Sui-ho (brother in real life to Chin Kar-lok). They
devise a plan to find him and free him. Shing Fui-on is the Big Boss and
he has the prisoner and an endless supply of minions willing to die. The
ending really is three continuous action scenes of gunplay mainly but my
favorite moment is when Kara kicks Shing Fui-on in the testicles. Shing Fui-on
gets kicked around a lot in this film. He must have been thinking I hire
a 100 men and none of them can shoot straight. Next time I go to We Can Shoot
Straight Hired Killers. What the hell and now this tiny woman is kicking
me in the balls. How embarrassing. Kara is really the star in this
film and is in a number of action scenes. Giving this film a 3.5 is silly
- I might lose my license to review films but this was so much fun.
