City Warriors
Director: Billy Chung
Year: 1988
Rating: 7.0
This is a punch in the face. Brutal, rancid, sleazy,
nasty and action packed. This is why I love many B Hong Kong action films.
They don't believe in rationing the violence or tempering it - it is all
hands on deck. Why have ten guys blasting away when you can have twenty?
Why have five stunt men taking rough tumbles when you can have ten? They
come cheap. Just beat the crap out of them and hope they can make it back
the next day. Johnny Wang who was a legendary villain for the Shaw Brothers
for years throws it all in this one as director - rape, prostitution, cocaine
in the vagina, giant shootouts, kung-fu in spades, a Psycho shower scene,
a pole stuck through someone to which he licks his blood pouring out and
exclaims "delicious" and hundreds of worms in a plastic see-through bag held
over someone's head as you can see them wriggling around inside. When they
showed this in Hong Kong I hope it was in the seediest of theaters with the
sound of rats scurrying around. That is where it belongs. No big stars (at
the time) in it but a lot of familiar faces and two of the best martial artists
in the business. They were rarely headliners but whenever they show up in
a film a smile of satisfaction creeps up my face.
The film begins with a great running gun battle between jewel thieves and
cops - all over - on a bus - in the streets - but this is just "a what the
hell why not scene" as it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie other
than at the end one of the cops falls into the water and comes out with a
dead female attached to him. She was a prostitute taken on board a yacht
and killed during sex - the cocaine - with a sadistic Japanese Yakuza. But
that too really has little to do with the rest of the film. They are just
padding it with sleaze and violence. The real story has to do with Lok Han
(Dick Wai) coming into Hong Kong on a tour from the Mainland led by tour
guide Ying Ying (Carina Lau - not a star yet or married to Tony Leung Chiu-wai).
She announces to the group tour that now you can say anything you want -
in Hong Kong there is freedom of speech. She also tells them that Hong Kongers
may refer to them as Ar Chan - a term that was derived from a TVB TV show
when one of the actors, Liu Wai-hung, was a Mainland immigrant named Ar Chan
and it became a slang expression for a Mainlander.
Lok Han isn't there for the sights though - he is looking for his sister
Ling (Debbie Chiu) who escaped from the Mainland two years ago with her boyfriend
Ah Kit (Ken Lo) and he is worried about her. He has reason to be - Kit has
turned her into a prostitute working for Sister - a male transvestite (Shum
Wai) who has a thing for Kit and cruelty. They report to a politician (famous
director Chor Yuen). Oh, and Lok Han was a martial arts instructor for the
Red Army. And when he finds out what has happened to his sister, he is not
happy. A lot of people are going to die. Cops are in the mix as well - as
Old Mak (Ko Chun-hsiung) is after the bad guys and Lok Han. He reports to
the superintendent played by Phillip Chan. Like I said a lot of familiar
faces.
It starts brutal and stays there - more hard hitting fights than I can count.
Seeing Dick Wai and Ken Lo mix it up is always a pleasure - both famous for
their skills. I just saw an interview with Cynthia Rothrock and she mentions
that in their on screen fights, Wei hits hard with intent. Lo is famous for
Drunken Master II of course but he has helped so many films as a fighter
or stunt man. They both get ample opportunities to show their skills. A lot
of it looks very real. So totally a B film where I read one reviewer calling
it "a cheap, very rushed, very badly acted gangster film" and I can't really
argue with that - but somehow he makes no mention of the action which is
easily 50% of the film and makes for a tough 90-minutes of watching. In a
good way.
