Bury Me High
12/13/00
Review
Format: DVD
Stars: Chin Kar Lok, Tsui Siu Ming, Moon Lee, Yuen Wah, Sibelle Hu

"This is a film about one of the practical metaphysics of the Orient - Geomancy. The Orientals believe fervently that a good burial site endows fame and fortune on its descendants. Anna and Wisely go to Indochina to trace their root. They meet the new dictator General Nguen who bloodbath the country. Anna and Wisely are determined to stop him by finding the Conqueror the dictator's ancestor is buried and destroy it."

Here's what Kar Lok and Siu Ming can do (just a small taste)


Understand? Wisely's (CKL) father is buried at one place that brings him wisdom, while Anna's (Moon Lee) father was buried at the site of money, and Nguen's (Wah) was buried at the site of power. This movie is full of tons of cool stuff. First off, Tsui Siu Ming is in it and does some good fighting. Second, Wah gets a LONG fight. Third, there's all this Feng Shui going on everywhere and it's great. There's one time when Siu Ming puts this little compass on his watch and says, "This is a good place to be." Very fun. Sure beats Big Trouble in Little China.



Action you want? There's more here than I expected, really. The movie without martial arts would have been entertaining enough, but they added fights to it all very well. Though there are only about 4, they're good. The first is in a dance hall, and I didn't expect any good fighting really because CKL's character just doesn't seem like a fighter, but ok! He and Siu Ming dispense a crowd of evil doers (actually just trouble makers) and look really good. Siu Ming is just like Sammo in how he moves, it's amazing. Plus, he has a similar build, though it wasn't always that way. In Buddhist Fist he was in much better shape as the monk. Still, they move quickly, CKL doing good looking kicks which look so out of place because of his outfit and character, while seeing Siu Ming move around in his modest suit is a pleasure to any HK fan's eyes. Great group choreography here too, and CKL does a little breakdancing for us (kind of)! And they both seem to do everything on their own.



This next one is really cool and reminds me of a level on Mortal Kombat 2. CKL is on a bridge with a bunch of other hostages, and this soldier fights him and they both do some solid boxing, with CKL picking the guy up and slamming him down onto the bridge at one point. With the light in the background, the moves are well shown. It's about a minute long but it's still cool to see a good fight in an odd place.



The next two fights are mixed together. While CKL is taking Yuen Wah, Tsui Siu Ming is fighting the soldier from the last fight. CKL and Wah fight in this little alcove in the side of a mountain, and then move into Wah's office after the place explodes. Siu Ming's fight is short, but it's bloodier and more aggressive. CKL's against Yuen Wah is very impressive. It's way long for today's standards, and the choreography changes with the distance between them. Moon Lee comes in and she and CKL double up for a while but Wah is a little too tough. I can't say how happy I am to see Wah in a LONG fight for once. Tsui Siu Ming directed this and I can tell you that he knows who can do what. Though Moon Lee didn't get much fighting, you can see her in any of, uh, 30 movies? As the star action role too. So Siu Ming did a good job at putting Wah at the front of this one. Great action all around!!!



Wow, a feng shui movie, how interesting. And some good martial arts along with it. Not all magical martial arts, but real stuff. I really need to see more movies by Siu Ming because I can tell he knows what he's doing. He made Wah the big big big big boss. And he can still fight pretty well himself. And his choreography is a bit different. Fast moves, with some Jacky-isms like quick exchanges and stuff like that. So, a really cool, high budget movie that's good to begin with with great martial arts makes it an easy one to rate.

5/5

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