Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/Martial Arts/Girls With Guns
Director: Yuen Wo-Ping
Year: 1989
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE
If you’re looking for emotionally hard-hitting Hong Kong drama, In The Line Of Duty 4 probably ain’t gonna do it for you.
The plot is pretty standard stuff. Seattle cops Donnie (Donnie Yen), Rachel (Cynthia Khan), and Peter (Blaine Camoureux) are after some drug dealers. Peter manages to take incriminating photographs of a drug deal, but the film ends up in the hands of Luk Wan-Ting (Yuen Yat-Choh), some poor resident alien who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
From that point on, Luk becomes a target, being pursued both by the cops and the drug dealers.
It’s just enough of a plot on which to hang the jaw dropping action sequences of Yuen Wo-Ping.
Thankfully, Yuen Wo-Ping is smart enough to establish the characters of Luk and Rachel before the action begins in earnest, so you care about their fates, at least enough to sustain a 90 minute running time.
It’s also fortunate that, in addition to being capable athletes, leads Cynthia Khan, Yuen Yat-Choh, and Donnie Yen also have a reasonable amount of charisma. Khan is not quite as charming as Michelle Yeoh was in the first entry of the series, but then again, who is? Even Michael Wong, who can usually be counted on to be a horrible actor, is pretty good as a slick CIA functionary. Even the gweilo actors aren’t too embarrassing this time around.
There’s also plenty of martial arts talent for director Yuen Wo-Ping to play with: Michael Woods, John Salvitti, Fairlie Ruth Kordick, Paul Wong Kwan, and others all contribute excellent fight scenes.
I don’t want to oversell In The Line Of Duty 4. It has great martial arts action and awesome stunts, and the characters are likeable, but it’s not a full-on masterpiece or anything.
But for non-stop, Golden Age of Hong Kong style action, In The Line Of Duty 4 pretty much kicks ass.
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