Violent Cop - Virulent Flop | Trash Cinema Club

Jul

6

Violent Cop - Virulent Flop

≡ Category: Action, Hong Kong, Not Worth Your Time, Suspense |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Suspense
Director: Steve Cheng
Year: 2000

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

In Violent Cop, some nut has been going around killing johns, cutting off their nutsacks and carving a cross on their tongues. It seems that most of the victims are customers of pimp Tai Pan-Kim (Anthony Wong). While trying to apprehend the killer, Yuen Wai-Hau (Moses Chan) is accidentally shot by his best buddy, Cuba (Michael Wong). Making matters worse, Cuba’s fiancee is convinced that Cuba shot his friend on purpose out of jealousy.

Cuba is determined to catch the killer in order to redeem himself. Tai Pan-Kim joins forces with him, more out of self interest than anything else.

Now, that seems like a perfectly serviceable premise for a thriller, but I’ve got to tell you, Violent Cop sucks balls.

Why? Violent Cop epitomizes the moribund state the Hong Kong film industry found itself in in the early 2000s.

First off, director Steve Cheng indulges in all sorts of queasy camera moves and cheapjack video tricks that make you want to lose your lunch. And he’s an unimaginably bad director of actors. True, Anthony Wong at this point in his career was phoning in his performances for the most part, but Wayne Lai, who was so effective in 1997’s Intruder, is absolutely horrible as the chief loony. And of course, Michael Wong has always been wretched.

Then there is the script by Cary Cheng. The characters aren’t developed worth a damn and there’s nothing even remotely clever about the plot.

By 2000, practically no one in Hong Kong was doing decent fight choreography, and the work here by action director Douglas Kung is no exception.

The music score by Tommy Wai is downright embarrassing.

Finally, Violent Cop features some of the worst voice dubbing of all time. And why on earth would you even want to dub the great Anthony Wong with another actor’s voice?

Basically, Violent Cop is a disaster. It’s a boring, lazily scripted, altogether shoddy piece of work.

Even if you’re a rabid fan of Anthony Wong, I urge you to avoid Violent Cop.