They Came To Rob Hong Kong - Starting Out With A Bang, Whimpering the Rest Of The Way

Aug

6

They Came To Rob Hong Kong - Starting Out With A Bang, Whimpering the Rest Of The Way

≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Girls with Guns, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Not Worth Your Time |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Comedy/ Girls With Guns/ Action/ Martial Arts
Director: Clarence Ford
Year: 1989

Rating:

WORTH A LOOK

Okay, here’s the thing.

They Came To Rob Hong Kong is 95% Cantonese comedy, which is very broad and not very funny. There is occasional action, but mostly it’s played for laughs.

For me, They Came To Rob Hong Kong would be a solid 1 1/2 star movie, except for one thing.

Director Clarence Ford and action choreographer Phillip Kwok put together an astonishing action setpiece in the very beginning of the movie.

This sequence has everything: blistering gunfire, hard-hitting kung fu, and jaw dropping stunts, all directed, edited and performed energetically (by the likes of Roy Cheung, Ann Mui, Ann Bridgewater, Kara Hui, and Yeung Jing-Jing). The sequence ends too abruptly, but other than that, it’s textbook action filmmaking.

If They Came To Rob Hong Kong had built on it’s opening scenes, and maintained the quality, it would have been an essential girls with guns feature.

Instead, the film wastes the talent of Chin Siu-Ho and gives endless screen time to such Cinema City comedy hacks as Dean Shek, Eric Tsang, and Stanley Fung.

Yawn.

Other than that one admittedly superb scene, They Came To Rob Hong Kong is a waste of time.