Going into this film, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew what that it starred Sammo Hung, that there was a fight with Cynthia Rothrock... and that's about it. I admit that the opening for this film is very strange, Sammo as a simple thief, fighting russians in a snow landscape and being hunted by a bounty hunter, I guess. But after this introduction the plot starts to build more and more...
... we get introduced to the main bad guy played by Paul Chang Chung (who we recognize from earlier Jackie Chan films) planning to rob a train and steal something valuable. And then there's Eric Tsang as the leader of a robber gang, followed by his stupid henchmen (one of them played by Ching-Ying Lam) and this is where I was starting to realize that this film had some famous actors in it. Little did I know that the next introduction was no other than Yuen Biao as a fireman turned police chief in the little town where everything more or less ends up taking place. Some great stunts during a town on fire while the bank robbery take place. Luckily Yuen Biao and his firemen manage to catch two of the robbers which ends up being Hoi Mang and Wu Ma, and now I know for sure that this is a film just filled with candy for an avid Hong Kong action film watcher as me. With the introduction of the train that's headed towards the town, we get introduced to Richard Ng, Billy Lau and two rivaling Kung Fu Masters (Jimmy Wang Yu and Kien Shih) I had pretty much given up keeping count by now, this film just knocked me out with surprise after surprise of cameos and supportive roles.
I complained with previous HK films that they looked like different gags and fight scenes being filmed and then edited together into a full-length film, this feel like a proper film, most of the plots of all the various characters in the film getting linked together at the end and I couldn't really believe how we would be able to fit all of this into a 90 minutes long film.
70 minutes into the film the third act kicks in and we get multiple fights in various styles between all kinds of characters, including Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton, it's pretty fantastic how they could press so much content into the last 20 minutes and you would really need to see it more than once to follow along and appreciate all of the fights. And really, for a film I gave 10 out of 10 stars, how could I even complain about anything? Well, with a cast and story like this, it really should've been 30-60 minutes longer, many of the side characters got cut off pretty quickly or got forgotten at the end. But I was never bored at any time through the film and I laughed out loud multiple times during the film and I see no other reason than giving this 10 stars - it's really an action comedy western rollercoaster of a film - just crazy fun fantastic.
... we get introduced to the main bad guy played by Paul Chang Chung (who we recognize from earlier Jackie Chan films) planning to rob a train and steal something valuable. And then there's Eric Tsang as the leader of a robber gang, followed by his stupid henchmen (one of them played by Ching-Ying Lam) and this is where I was starting to realize that this film had some famous actors in it. Little did I know that the next introduction was no other than Yuen Biao as a fireman turned police chief in the little town where everything more or less ends up taking place. Some great stunts during a town on fire while the bank robbery take place. Luckily Yuen Biao and his firemen manage to catch two of the robbers which ends up being Hoi Mang and Wu Ma, and now I know for sure that this is a film just filled with candy for an avid Hong Kong action film watcher as me. With the introduction of the train that's headed towards the town, we get introduced to Richard Ng, Billy Lau and two rivaling Kung Fu Masters (Jimmy Wang Yu and Kien Shih) I had pretty much given up keeping count by now, this film just knocked me out with surprise after surprise of cameos and supportive roles.
I complained with previous HK films that they looked like different gags and fight scenes being filmed and then edited together into a full-length film, this feel like a proper film, most of the plots of all the various characters in the film getting linked together at the end and I couldn't really believe how we would be able to fit all of this into a 90 minutes long film.
70 minutes into the film the third act kicks in and we get multiple fights in various styles between all kinds of characters, including Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton, it's pretty fantastic how they could press so much content into the last 20 minutes and you would really need to see it more than once to follow along and appreciate all of the fights. And really, for a film I gave 10 out of 10 stars, how could I even complain about anything? Well, with a cast and story like this, it really should've been 30-60 minutes longer, many of the side characters got cut off pretty quickly or got forgotten at the end. But I was never bored at any time through the film and I laughed out loud multiple times during the film and I see no other reason than giving this 10 stars - it's really an action comedy western rollercoaster of a film - just crazy fun fantastic.