1992 - FULL CONTACT, Ringo Lam's stylish action thriller

Ringo Lam's crime film is stylish, dirty, violent, soulless, and very entertaining for the action junkie crowd looking for lots of shooting and fighting without any of that morale compass stuff.

Chow Yun-fat plays Gou Fei a tough guy criminal along with his friend Sam Sei who get mixed up with an outrageous criminal gang looking to hijack a bunch of weapons.  Well one thing leads to another and there is betrayal, killing and lots more killing as a wounded Gou Fei nurses himself back to health all the while training and exercising himself into a one man killing machine and kill he does.

 

Ringo Lam was one of the best action directors working in Hong Kong, in Full Contact he's on location in Bangkok where he proceeds to blow and shoot up the town.  There's some dirty stuff as well one of the gang members is a woman who is shall we say a little oversexed another is a scary monster of a man called Deano as in not Dean Martin.  Gou Fei has a wife who seems like a nice bring her home to meet the parents kind of gal.  Her occupation appears to be exotic dancer so in between all the mayhem we get lots of dirty dancing.

 

It's always good to see Chow Yun-fat in his prime, he was a very charismatic actor.  Another Hong Kong mainstay is Anthony Wong who frequently showed up as a weaselly bad guy in a lot of these crime films.  The actor Ann Bridgewater who played Chow's wife actually got out of the film business and became an occupational therapist.

Full Contact is exactly what it is a well made film with absolutely no purpose to it other than to have Ringo Lam stage a bunch of impressive action scenes.  

The film was written by Nam Yin, the running time is 104 minutes. 

1990 - UNDECLARED WAR, disappointing action film from Ringo Lam

 Undeclared War is a big disappointment from Hong Kong action director Ringo Lam.  The plot has something to do with a world terrorist organization trying to destroy an international conference of nations, seen that one before.  The film has the American and Hong Kong police joining forces to stop the terrorists.

The Hong Kong cop is played by Danny Lee his girlfriend is Rosamund Kwan who has shown up in some Jackie Chan and Tsui Hark films.  They deliver a lot of their dialog in English for the benefit of the American cop and  American audience and do fairly well with it although at times it's a little shaky.  I don't know how many times Danny Lee has played a Hong Kong cop but it seems like every time I see him in a film that's the character he seems to be stuck with.

 

The bad guys are played by Olivia Hussey one time star of Romeo and Juliet and Vernon Wells, the "Wez" from The Road Warrior and the chief bad guy in that Schwarzenegger classic Commando.  Olivia Hussey seems completely out of place in this film she should be playing a nun or something in a Zeffirelli film.  Vernon Wells could do these really evil bad guy parts in his sleep by this point in his career and he seems very sleepy in this film.

 

Usually Ringo Lam could rev it up with some great action stuff even in his so-so films but in this case he doesn't seem to have had the inventiveness or energy to rise to the occasion.  It's just one boring gun fight after another.  Even a speedboat chase towards the end of the film is boring.  Undeclared War is a big tiresome letdown  from a usually reliable director

The film was written by Nam Yin, Timothy Lung, Deborah Grant and Louis Roth.  Four writers for a standard action film never a good sign.  The running time is 109 minutes.

1994, BURNING PARADISE IN HELL, an odd film from Ringo Lam

Usually one associates urban action films with directors like John Woo and in this case Ringo Lam.  Burning Paradise in Hell is unusual in that it is a period piece which is a little out of Lam's film making element.

The film has one of Asia's legendary hero's Fong Sai-yuk trying to rescue a girl stuck in an underground lair ruled by a despot who has rigged the whole place up with lots of deadly booby traps.  Frankly the plot doesn't really make much sense which seems to be the way with these films.

 

Lots of action well staged a sufficiently creepy atmosphere but I've probably seen to many of these Asian action films this month, this one had that old feeling of deju-vu to it.  If you like your martial arts action sufficiently wild you will probably enjoy this film.  Tsui Hark was the producer.

Written by Nam Yin and Wong Wan-choi, the running time is 104 minutes.