Directed by David Lai with fight direction by Corey Yuen, it starts with supervillain Silver Fox (Aaron Kwok) busting his master Henry Fong out of prison, then killing him and swearing revenge. The fight in prison is wire-tastic, with the Fox flying around, over and through bars and barbed wire. His master is handcuffed to a wall that is not just damp, not just dripping, but covered with a sheet of constantly pouring water. The scene, lit from above and shot from below, is powerfully graphic and atmospheric. However, it may be impossible to ignore the fact that all of this elegance can be done with little or no budget.
We meet our heroes, the City Soldiers (?): Anita Mui, her suave boyfriend in a silk suit and Panama hat, Kenny Bee, and the tongue-tied boy who also loves her, Andy Lau. Bee's teenage sister, a tomboy in a baseball uniform (Gloria Yip, totally cute) shows up and falls in love with Lau. Mui's sister (played by Anita Mui, but seemingly voiced by a drag queen), wears trashy outfits, talks like a slut and gets shot in the butt.
Carina Lau, as Pet Lady (?), world's greatest physician, shows up a few times, but it is not clear why.
There is a lot of melodrama, with Lau longing for Mui, Yip longing for Lau, and so on. The action gets more an more ridiculous - Silver Fox's big move is to inhale some weird gas, then run through his opponent, thus poisoning him. Amazingly, this is not the wackiest martial arts move, not is Lau's sword that rolls up into a yo-yo. You'll just have to watch it and see.
Expect:
- Silky, flowing billowing costumes, on men and women
- Shadows, light, water, fog
- Monumental buildings, concrete palaces, warehouse lofts, empty of people
- Beautifully composed frames, looking like they came from a comic (and maybe they did)
As I said before, the low budget sometimes shows, and you may notice some weaknesses in the logic. But never any lack of imagination.
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