Movie Review Double Feature

This also falls under old video review by yours truly.

Before there was Infernal Affairs, there was City on Fire.

City on Fire or Lung fu fong wan (1987) starring Chow Yun Fat as Ko Chow, and Danny Lee as Ah Fu and directed by Ringo Lam. I remember first seeing it in a movie house in Manhattan Chinatown in probably 1987 when human beings didn't exist and dinosaurs roamed the Earth...but that was another story.

I was immensely impressed by the movie. The direction, the story and the acting in general. I had to say, even by today's standard, Chow's on screen wardrobe was pretty impressive. The parka, the boots, and very narrow tie and even a bow, I mean it's over the top and if anybody, it would be Chow who could pull off that overall look.

City on Fire probably set the bar for all future undercover police stories, by and large.

******

Fast forward to 2003, we had this crap called Heroic Duo or Shuang xiong (2003), starring Leon Lai as Jack Lai, Ekin Cheng as Ken. Jack was a MIT educated hypnotist who of course didn't fail to put the audience to sleep with his wooden performance through out the entire movie. Jack was in jail for a murder. And now Inspector Ken has to enlist Jack's help to solve another case involving hypnotics. The scene where they tried to capture "mindhunter," Jack's alleged hypnotic master was a scene from Se7en, only minus the rain. The scene when Jack and Ken first met, the scene the cops are waiting for the elevator to come down remind me The Silence of the Lambs. The plot starts out mildly interesting but as it progresses it becomes more retarded and of course the final show down was just like 007 with tortured chamber and plenty of explosions.

To make matter worse, Ekin Cheng's Ken and his on screen love interest, Brenda, another cop, played by Kar Yan Lam, were like a three way competition to see who could give the most wooden performance through out. And I think, the first place is a tie between Leon Lai and Kar Yan Lam and the runner up is Ekin Cheng who has the advantage of a more action oriented role to spice up the role just a tad than the other two.

Overall the movie is silly but not funny.