Thou Shalt Not Swear
Director: Wellson Chin
Year: 1993
Rating: 6.0
Enjoyable mid budget Hong Kong film
that mixes in murder, comedy, action and ghosts. It was directed by Wellson
Chin who helmed some topnotch Girls with Guns films - Naughty Boys and four
of the Inspector Wears Skirts films. A tip about visiting Hong Kong; don't
be there on July 14th. That is the day when the Gates of Hell open up and
the spirits come out to play. Seven small children in an orphanage are friends
and they swear on that day to get together every year on that date. But as
the years pass, they drift apart and their oath is broken. The spirits do
not take kindly to that.
When Simon (Michael Tiu) thinks his wife
is away, he brings another woman into bed and turns on the overhead fan.
Whirling, whirling faster and then becomes dislodged and cuts the couple
into pieces with organs strewn around the room. Inspector Chow (Michael Chow)
is put in charge of the case and is teamed up with an eccentric, often annoying
new partner played by a very young looking Lau Ching-wan. He also has some
ESP powers. They spend much of the film bickering and ragging on one another.
In other words, a traditional buddy cop film. When they find out that the
wife Chia Yi (Jennifer Chan) came home early and saw the couple, they suspect
she is the killer. She says she has an alibi, talking to one of those seven
friends, but he turns out to be dead. The deeper they dig into the mystery,
it all goes back to that night they swore that pact and then broke it.
Some nice bits of humor such as having to
question a gweilo in English and Chow only knows "I am a man" and "You have
a pen" and his partner can only sing in English. Or getting a shave from
a man with shaky hands. Later on they meet a ferocious ghost played by Helen
Law Lan who is like the Terminator. Not particularly scary even with all
the atmospherics, but they have a nice back and forth chemistry and repartee.
They were to appear as the same characters the next year in The Third Full
Moon. Michael Chow has never been a favorite of mine, but in the 1990s he
was very popular. He was to play a cop in a few other films around that time
- The Crucifixion, Twist, The Case of the Cold Fish, Asian Connection, Mr.
Mumble and City Cop.
