Righting Wrongs - Two Wongs Make A White

Jul

15

Righting Wrongs - Two Wongs Make A White

≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Essential, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Movie Reviews By Country |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Drama/Action
Director: Corey Yuen
Year: 1986

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE

The opening reel of Righting Wrongs, also known as Above The Law, is pretty ridiculous, even for a Hong Kong action flick. It seems that a group of hitmen, played by the usual horrible gweilo actors, are preparing to assassinate the lawyer who is mentoring Ling-cheng (Yuen Biao). Yuen Biao realizes his mentor is a target right about the time he spots a hitman with a gun strapped to his accordian (yep, it’s as silly as it sounds).

Afterwards, there’s a ridiculous chase culminating in a fairly intense car stunt. While the villains are crawling out of their totalled car, Ling-cheng has them dead to rights with a gun he appropriated from one of the assassins. What does he do? Recall that this guy is a lawyer. You’ll never guess.

Anyway, Righting Wrongs is pretty hard to take seriously. It’s like a Hong Kong version of Beverly Hills Cop, only sillier. The filmmakers even steal Axel Foley’s gag of putting a banana in the tailpipe of a car to keep it from starting.

Okay, here’s the story. As you might have guessed, attorney Ling-cheng moonlights as a vigilante. After a crook that’s beaten a drug dealing rap ends up dead, Ling-cheng’s boss, Superintendent Wong Jing-wai (Melvin Wong) assigns Inspector Sandy Jones (Cynthia Rothrock) to find the vigilante. Wong also gives her a partner, Joe Doh (Corey Yuen, who was also the director and one of the fight choreographers), who mostly gets in the way.

Joe provides much of the comic relief. He’s a major slob and slacker, prone to eating cheeseburgers on the job. (He says to a fellow cop on a stakeout, “Don’t waste it. It’s public money, anyway.”) Joe’s father, played by the wonderful comic character actor Wu Ma, constantly scolds his son and tries to keep Sandy from sending Joe out on dangerous assignments.

There’s a great scene where Joe questions a perp who committed sexual assault by putting his hand on the ass of a foreign woman. It turns out the victim was Sandy. Thinking Sandy doesn’t understand Cantonese, Joe mocks the perp, saying “She has a big waist and a big potbelly. She looks like a tree at close range,” going on and on about how unattractive Sandy is.

I’ve got to say, Cynthia Rothrock was an awfully good sport. But it’s a good thing they had that dialog in there because Rothrock looks like a bleach-blonde bulldog. Usually, when women play cops in Hong Kong movies, they’re drop dead beautiful. Rothrock may not be easy on the eyes, but she sure can fight. No wonder — she was undefeated World Karate Champion in Forms & Weapons five years running.

And she’s not the only gweilo the filmmakers found who could fight. There’s also the Grand Champion of the U.S. Open Karate championships, Karen Sheperd, who plays an assassin. And Peter Cunningham excels as yet another assassin.

I shouldn’t go any further in this review without mentioning that Corey Yuen wasn’t the only stunt coordinator on the show. Hsu Hsia, Yuen Biao, Mang Hoi, and Sammo Hung Stuntmen’s Association all do tremendous work.

Anyway, as the film goes on, it gets darker and darker and the stunts and fight scenes get crazier and crazier. Like many Hong Kong movies, there’s no telling who will be left standing by the end of the movie. Women, dogs, children, heroes — nobody’s safe.

For the first twenty minutes of Righting Wrongs, I wasn’t sure I would even like the movie. By the end, I had to admit — Righting Wrongs, in spite of it’s essentially silly nature, is a balls-out action classic.

Note: Make sure you find the Hong Kong version. The International version is severely compromised. The best solution of all is to the find the Universe version, which has the Hong Kong cut on one side and the International version on the other side. It’s pretty enlightening to compare the two.