Review Index

Home

This is an exemplar of a long tradition of exploitation cinema. It fullfils the Joe Bob Briggs definition of a drive-in classic, in that anyone can die at any moment. Had it been released during the heyday of drive-in martial arts movies, it would have been a cult classic.

A messenger is charged by a warlord with the delivery of a package to turn of the century rebels. The messenger's safe conduct has always depended on the good will of the people and he has preserved this good will by refusing to carry weapons and messages of war. The package he is carrying for the warlord, unbeknownst to him, is a machine gun. This is only one of the many betrayals which form the plot of the movie.

There are great set pieces here. The fight between Chow Yun Fat and the team of a giant and a midget--the midget riding on a platform on the giant's back--is a classic piece of kung fu, as is the battle on a frozen lake with ice-skating bandits and the final confrontation with the ninja assassin who has been picking off our heroes one by one. When the machine gun is assembled and the warlord wastes a bunch of villagers who are hanging on a big wicker wall and then turns it onto a couple of little kids, all bets are off. No one is safe. This is probably an expression of Hong Kong's version of millennial unease, disguised in a non-specific historical setting. As gangsters come in and wipe out the people with impugnity, the filmmakers are displaying a remarkable prescience, predicting the Tienamen Square massacre and re-interpreting it on a larger scale. The best kung-fu movie you've never heard of before.