On Parole (1993) - 5.0
I had been expecting a low budget Hong Kong Girls with Guns film with Kara Hui in the lead but this is closer to a Girls with Menus film. A little disappointing. There are small spurts of action but it is primarily a downbeat drama that never quite comes to life. I kept waiting for Kara to let loose against the triad swine trying to screw with her but she just won’t go there until the very end when she bashes in someone’s head with a board and dumps him in the pool. That must have felt good considering what she puts up with. It isn’t a bad drama with a few tragedies dotting the landscape but just not what I was expecting. Kara has turned into a fine dramatic actress over the past decade as she had to leave her action roots behind her as she got older – but back in 1993 you went to see her to knock a few heads.
The film opens in a slightly confusing manner. Dick Wei is a gang boss who is excoriating his members as to who was dealing drugs. His right-hand man Lo Lieh gets on his knees and confesses. Suddenly, Wei is attacked by other members who want to get into the drug business and killed. Clearly, the shortest Dick Wei appearance in any film. His wife is Kara who is also present as is Lo Lieh’s wife (Pauline Wong Yu-wan – not the famous Pauline Wong Siu-fung) who is behind this. For some reason Kara is sent to prison for six years but not before Wei tells her to get out of the underground. And when she gets out that is what she attempts to do. But nothing is easy for a single female with a record.
She gathers a few other female friends with prison records and opens a restaurant – after she pushes Henry Fong Ping out. He refuses until she sends in her secret weapon - Ellen Chan to seduce him and have photographs taken. They get the restaurant and a lot of trouble along with it. Henry wants it back and the wife of Lo Lieh has an obsession to destroy Kara. So burning it, planting drugs, killing a friend are all part of what she has to deal with. But she refuses to go into action. Damn. In the film also are Chin Ka-lok and Vincent Wan as two good guys helping out the women. There is a On Parole 2 (Do Unto the Other on IMDB) which I have so I will have to check that out. Hopefully, less cooking and more hitting. Pretty obscure. Seen on VCD in a dark murky quality that made getting pictures pointless.
On Parole 2 - Do Unto the Other (1993) - 5.0
On Parole from Hong Kong had a sequel in the same year and the seventeen people who saw that including myself were glad to find out what became of the restaurant. A quick reminder of that first one which this film happily supplies. Kara Hui Ying Hung is widowed when her triad husband (Dick Wei) is betrayed and killed by his own men. For reasons unexplained Kara gets sentenced for six years and when she gets out she decides to go straight and opens a restaurant with an all female jail bird staff. Other than Vincent Wan who eventually becomes the cook. A triad is out to get her and wrecks the restaurant and beats up everyone a few times. Most everyone from that film doesn't make it to this film.
Clearly, running a restaurant in Hong Kong is a tough business because another scumbag does everything he can to destroy the restaurant again. Kara mopes for a few minutes and then says let's clean it up and get back to work. To be wrecked again. The cops of course never do anything. I wonder if these gangs who show up to cause trouble are in the Yellow Pages and specialize. We Wreck Restaurants. We Destroy Nightclubs. You Want an Office Damaged - Call Us. We Deliver Hell Right to Their Home. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. If you ever open a restaurant there be sure to get fire insurance, death insurance, customer law suit insurance, gang insurance.
This time Kara who is still with Vincent sees the lawyer (Tin Lap-man) who fooled her and got her sent to prison. She throws a glass of water in his face. Wrong face. He is a psychopath and coincidentally married to the woman (Yip San) that Vincent used to love and got pregnant. The little girl is a cutie. This sets the wheels of craziness in motion as the lawyer strikes back again and again. The first film felt a bit too timid. Not this one. They move up the ante five fold. Not so much the action which tends to be gangs beating up people but just the nastiness, the cruelty gets out of hand. I lost count of the number of times Kara gets beaten like a punching bag. The lawyer is also a domestic abuser and kicks and punches his wife around like a rag doll. This is just too mean spirited. The lives of all these women who work in the restaurant has been miserable - raped, forced into prostitution, beaten, given no respect - they all hate men except for Vincent - and all they have to cling on to is this little oasis in the middle of all the shit - and here come men to wreck it. Sadly, there was no On Parole 3. I hope they are all doing well.