Framed
Director:
Alex Cheung
Year:
1989
Rating:
6.0
This has a terrific cast for what
is basically a mid-budget action crime film. Not to mention that the director
is Alex Cheung. Cheung had directed two of the most acclaimed New Wave films,
Cops and Robbers and Man on the Brink - but after that like many of the New
Wave directors he seems to have faded away. So here he is eight years after
winning Best Director for Man on the Brink making a fairly standard though
solid action film. In the cast are Alex Man, Simon Yam, Ray Lui, Shum
Wai and a surprise - Yukari Oshima. A surprise because this isn't a Girls
with Guns film and she is probably only fifth in terms of screen time. But
she gets some quality time in. And two terrific fights. Both Yam and Lui
had been around for a while but had yet to hit the big time - they would
within a few years. Yukari was of course one of the top female action stars.
Simon gets out of jail after a ten-year
sentence. He was a cop. He was framed for having drugs. His mother has died,
his home a wreck and his life destroyed. Like any reasonable Hong Kong movie
character he wants to exact some revenge. He has in mind the two cops who
stopped his car and found planted drugs in his trunk. With his hair slicked
back and all in black he is set to kill. The first cop is crushed to death
and as he dies Simon maniacally grins. One down. One to go.
The problem is that Alex Man, the second
cop, is innocent. He had nothing to do with the frame. He gets into a drunken
fight with Stuart Ong in a karaoke over a broken bottle of win - with Yukari
among Ong's friends - and when Ong leaves the club he is murdered from a
car in front of Yukari. Man wakes up from a conk on the head and find himself
arrested - his gun has been used. His friend Lui tries to help but Shum Wai
is out to prove he is guilty. He has his reasons. The film is poorly served
by having three dimwitted cops - if a police station was anything like this
in real life, no crime would ever be solved. The rest of the film is pretty
good with some solid action choreographed by Mang Hoi.
At one point Man goes to see Yukari as she
is a witness - in a lovely scene she just beats the hell out of him. Then
later some bad guys invade the apartment where she and Lui are discussing
the case - and she has some great flips and kicks. And then more bad guys
show up with machine guns. This has a freeze frame ending - and we are left
with a few questions - like who is still alive. They loved those freeze frame
endings.
