Rating: *
Review Date: 11/15/08
Cast: Sonija Kwok, Tiffany Lee
Intolerably bad. This will be the last time I pick out a DVD from a seedy bargain bin in Chinatown. This shot-on-video atrocity takes the tried and true cop buddy formula of teaming up a Hong Kong police officer with a police officer from Mainland China, so that much cultural hilarity ensues. This time, the two officers happen to be young and perky models who are much better suited to fashion and cosmetics ads than police work. Peggy (Tiffany Lee) is a bubbly air-headed PR specialist on the Hong Kong Police Force, while Chu (Sonija Kwok) is an uptight Chinese officer who follows a dangerous criminal named Fred Luk to Hong Kong. They get assigned to work with each other on the case which results in lots of petty catfights and stupidness. It turns out that Luk is actually a cyborg (!), but the two cuties eventually manage to take him down. As these films go, it ends with the traditional tearful parting as the cultural exchange is over and Chu goes back to China.
This movie is an exercise in endurance and I found myself scrambling for the fast forward button less than two minutes into it. The budget on this production is next to nothing and the audio and video quality is awful. I feel nothing but embarrassment and pity for the lead actresses, who deserve do be doing something much, much better than working in productions of this quality. The most amusing aspect of the movie is how appallingly bad the visual effects are. Everything is done in post, including sparks, smoke, flames, bullet holes, muzzle flashes, ejected shells, wire removal, and cybernetic prosthetics. These all look terrible, but the absolute worst are the cyborg effects. Gaze in amazement as a travelling matte gets pasted onto a guy's face to show the metallic structure under his skin. Unbelievable. The only nice thing I can say about the movie is that the girls look like they're having fun and that they do their best to take it seriously. Ms. Kwok throws a couple of nice punches and kicks, but that's about all there is in the action department. A sad comment on the state of Hong Kong video production, and should be avoided at all cost.