Rating: B+
Dir: Sammo Hung
Star: Andy Lau, Lam Ching-Ying, Richard Ng, Eric Tsang
Though promoted as a Jackie Chan movie, there’s less of him in this than you’d expect – he and Yuen Biao vanish totally during the middle. That’s because it has something of an all-star HK cast: I suspect the list of related films will be a long one! JC is a cop in Japan who sends for help from his former orphanage buddies, though they spend more time leering at long-suffering policewoman Sibelle Hu, in scenes which are neither subtle nor PC (the gang rape joke, for instance) but, hell, I laughed.
And generally, the comedy works better than usual, keeping things effortlessly amusing until the action kicks in. There’s a great sequence in a fairground haunted house, and while the subs are of the “pale and ghostly” type, the widescreen really kicks in for the final fights. Michiko Nishiwaki does another of her striking cameos (c.f. God of Gamblers) and gets more sleeve space than Samo Hung and Yuen Biao combined — probably deservedly so. Unless you really only want Jackie and nothing but, this is thoroughly fun.