Aces Go Places 5 - The Terracotta Hit
1/8/00
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Sam Hui, Karl Maka, Conan Lee, Melvin Wong, others

The Terracotta Army statues have been stolen by a foreigner who has a cat puppet on one of his hands, and Hui and Maka must get them back.

There's something about this movie that bothered me. It just looked dirty, but mixed with the comedy it wasn't too bad in the end. But the action wasn't so great. Sam Hui was ok, but everyone else was either doubled (except the villians) or just couldn't fight, which is too bad since the action was directed by Lau Ka Wing.

For action, this one isn't very good. It's funny and all, but not the kind of action I was hoping for. An example is in the beginning when Maka and Hui are making a getaway with some bikes connected in the middle by a big carriage, and they can't go the same speed, and when Nina Li and some other guy shoot themselves out of cannons in the beginning. Now, that'd be a worthy stunt, but they just fly on wires. Funny, but not amazing or anything.



Conan Lee comes in to investigate Hui's office, and Conan isn't bad or anything, but Hui is doubled for each stunt, plus Conan seems to jump over everything to get from one place to the other, for no reason. He could easily go around. Hui goes out to the elevators outside and gets attacked by two ugly women who kick at him, and he blocks a few times, no attacking on his behalf. Kinda lame. Maka comes into the messed up office later and has 4 Americans on his back, one of them is a guy who seems to hold a Hung Gar stance but just hits Maka on the back. And the American chick is your typical ugly-permed-American found in almost every bad action scene in HK films. And I doubt Maka was doing his own falls but it's very possible. No worthwhile choreography here.



And let's not forget Maka playing Mahjong against himself to pass time.



Then there's a long scene of the bunch of them in prison which has some interesting stuff like picking the bullet for your own execution, some humor here and there. But they get out and Maka, Nina Li, Hui and some other guy have a fencing match against one of the ugly women. It's nothing special, you could find something like it in an American movie really, and Hui doesn't do any of his own acrobatics. Fencing isn't one of my things, but it's a somewhat lenthy scene and if you like fencing you might like this I suppose.



The last scene is really lame. The Terracotta Army is all standing up, but some of them are real people dressed up. Hui is upstairs fighting with a guy and it's terrible at first but gets better. Some ok stunts by the stuntmen, but every hit seems weak. The double for Maka is well done though, if it is in fact a double. They got everything right on him like the shaved head, beard, mustache and clothing. The ugly American woman fights for a second in a skirt which is horrid. Hui's fight seems to be the only high point, which has some good hand work and he makes a guy do an hk spin into a wooden box. It's only a few seconds long though. At one point the 4 heroes take on the clothed terracotta army with weapons. Hui isn't bad, but the whole scene is just lackluster. Hui takes Melvin Wong with weapons at one point which didn't impress me either. Basically the whole thing is forgettable because it's all done in a caked fashion where the fights are shown in little bits and then another fight, so nothing has focus for long. Bad.



I can't say I was the least bit impressed with this movie in terms of action. Everything seems either lazy or plain dull. Don't get it for martial arts or anything. There was a big finale and Hui wasn't bad, but overall it was crap.

1/5

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