Carry on Pickpocket
May 21, 2001
Review
Format: Cropped VCD
Stars: Sammo Hung, Frankie Chan, Dick Wei, Chan Lung, Richard Ng

Sammo and Frankie are professional pickpocketers and wind up in some trouble when they deal with the wrong kind of men.

This has to be the oddest Sammo movie (next to Dirty Tiger Crazy Frog) I've seen yet. It's actually quite entertaining, there are some great scenes of Sammo and Frankie picking some pockets, primarily in the beginning, and at the end the action picks up incredibly well and leaves you satisfied. Plus, Sammo and Frankie seem to be at peak performance in this, which is expected from a movie made in the early 80's.

Things start off really lightly, with Sammo, Frankie, and an older man (I've seen him many times but don't know his name) picking pockets, and there are of course lots of cool tricks that they perform, like Frankie practicing, dropping the wallet, and kicking it to Sammo across the room. Keep in mind that the cropped vcd prevents you from seeing this properly. The widescreen shots are done during the credits. Some good pickpocketing, Sammo gets a huge wallet from a guy looking up a girl's skirt on an escalator. And when they get their loot, they always pass it off to someone else, very fast and effortlessly.



Sammo and Frankie go to a night club and get into some trouble concerning women. Before that, Sammo does a Charlie Chaplin with some forks and buns, and yea I could argue that he stole it and he's a greedy prick, but he does it the same way Chaplin did, just as funny, actually better, and he's wearing a big white sweatshirt with mickey mouse on it, trying to charm a girl, how can I complain? He even hints at going to the dancefloor by pointing the buns. He then goes to the floor with her, does some dancing with her double, and gets Frankie into some trouble. Some good falls, but the editing is bad, tries to make things look too fast and ends up looking sloppy instead. And I'm skeptical of Frankie, I doubt he did his own falls, one of which is a very nice HK spin. Sammo comes and does great kickboxing, though, with some wing chun hands thrown in.



More pickpocketing stuff, with an officer Richard Ng showing up being his hilarious self. Sammo and Frankie are actually pretty scary here, they walk up to a guy and then walk off, and you think "Huh?" when they just robbed the guy. So fast, they seemed to do it properly, wonder what kind of consulting they did for this movie. Side splitting comedy with Ng happens here too. And there's this crazy stunt a cop does off a balcony where he just dives into someone going down the escalator. Nuts. Later they do more stealing, and they use razor blades that they keep in their mouths to cut clothing and pull money out. Amazing.



Some small kickboxing action from Sammo and Frankie in a junk yard during a trade, nothing great though and I couldn't get any good pics. So live with this one. Bad editing and camerawork.



There's a massive motocross race that Frankie gets chased into (while riding a motorcycle of course) by a car and some of the stuff that happens is amazing. A huge pileup of motorcycles, a guy going down a hill that completely eats it (obviously not intended but they kept the footage), and a nice car roll over a hill. Cool James Bond type of stuff, only better.



Sammo and Frankie finally get into trouble with the big boys. A short kickboxing scene in a house (mostly hits and brawls), and Frankie takes off with his girlfriend on one bike, Sammo on another, and Frankie hits the side of the villians' car and completely tosses the 2 all the way over the car, whoever they really were. Chan Lung does a little stuntwork by narrowly missing an incoming car and pommelling over a railing. And yes it was him. He looked right at the camera. Keep an eye out for Lam Ching Ying who looks surprisingly UGLY with his clothes and hair style. Sammo takes him and another guy out with a double flying front horse kick. Very nice. Finally the 3 of them jump from a VERY high overpass into a truck of baskets. Wow that's a lot of stuff in one scene.



If you still don't approve of the action content in this movie, the final scene should make you think otherwise. Sammo and Frankie board a ship and meet with the bad guys, including Dick Wei, Lam Ching Ying and Chan Lung. Some frighteningly painful looking stuff happens here, but the quality of the action is second to none. Good comedy too, it starts off with Frankie threatening to light some bound dynomite, which is a bunch of cigars, and Chan Lung says his is from Philadelphia and asks about Frankie's, he responds "Cuba." Oops. Some shotgun action here and there, Frankie gets some kickboxing, and there's a shot of a woman's bear chest, for those of you who care. Frankie goes on, carrying a suitcase and uses that as a weapon, with some kicking. He's obviously doubled for some stuff but does his own fighting. Another person we see is Donnie's rival in Legend of the Wolf that he fights in the jungle, something very surprising. Sammo's scenes are far better though, he's not the incompetent character Frankie is in this. He gets longer cuts too because he never gets doubled. His stick fight against another guy is especially nice, very brutal, hard hitting stuff. The other man is able to take falls well and rips his pants in the back (maybe on accident?) and they stay that way the whole time. He gets finished off with a terrible upward blow to the jaw and does a back dive into a can of dust. Amazing.



You might all think Dick Wei is the final contender, but he's only one of them. Chan Lung actually gets a good fight. Wei starts it off against both Sammo and Frankie and he looks incredibly young (because he is, maybe late 20's). He's fast, and Chan Lung comes a few seconds later and is, for once, intimidating. Frankie gets a small exchange with Wei (very nice camerawork for this whole boat scene too, editing is slowed down so we can see more of what's happening), and the girl shows her bare chest again. Wei's not moved by that and knocks her down. Sammo goes at Wei for a good, solid fight with fast choreography, some good cuts (8 or so hits), falls (Wei is doubled though, like always), and Wei throws great kicks chained with punches. They go all over the place too, good editing as well. When they get to the top, you can see Yuen Biu doubled for Wei, who knows why. Sammo takes a huge fall off the boat into the water after smashing Wei in the eye, Wei tumbles down stairs. Meanwhile, Frankie takes Chan Lung, which is short but the first time I've seen Chan fight for longer than 3 seconds (this one's almost 30 seconds). He does joint locks, very cool, and the camerawork here is especially good (see pics). Frankie, again, is doubled for half the stuff his character does and kills the superior Chan with a little spike, too bad. The end.



Honestly I love this movie, it's unique, the action has never been done this way and probably never will be. Camera angles (at and towards the end) were excellent and show another experimental effort by Sammo to get into the 80's modern kickboxing era. I say great job. Many of his stunt members were on hand, you see tons of familiar faces in this, and seeing Chan Lung, an INTIMIDATING AND PROFESSIONAL CHAN LUNG, fight was something I'll probably never get to witness again, and when I saw it at first I was aghast that this man could fight well. The fight against Dick Wei was perfectly done, lots of moving around, great camerawork and editing, the background at some points was awesome, my only complaint was that Frankie was doubled for so much. Why? Didn't he do wonders in The Prodigal Son? How about Outlaw Brothers, which I've yet to see? Who knows. But again I have to rate this Sammo film highly due to its experimental background, just like I did with Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon. For me it was completely satisfying, Frankie's doubling doesn't bother me as much as you might think. The pickpocketing scenes were a treat too, very fun stuff, can't go wrong. Humor is outrageous as I said. When I look at Sammo's other experimental films like Don't Give a Damn and, uh, I guess OUATICAA would fit in there because that style hasn't been used by him since, I'm not half as impressed, he just didn't do it right. Maybe he will again later on, but these early films of his are necessities of anyone who enjoys the once-great-HK genre. People who experience Jackie Chan and never move on are missing out. Whereas many of Jackie's films, primarily the old Lo Wei movies and his new attempts at action, are completely overrated, Sammo's are underrated and that alone is reason enough to go check them all out. Add to that he is a better fighter altogether. Jackie never used any styles in his later movies except in Drunken Master 2. I'll give him the upper hand on stunts and cool non-fighting action, but Sammo goes all out with Wing Chun, Escrima, JKD, animals, INTERESTING kickboxing, and everything else, PROPERLY.

5/5 - Go support Sammo today!

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