Iceman Cometh
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah, Maggie Cheung

Ching (Biao) is a royal guard in the Ming Dynasty who has to fulfill the duty of capturing Fung San (Wah) after he brutally killed and raped numerous women of nobility. Fung San escapes from Ching by entering the Wheel, which sends him 300 years into the future. Ching is able to do the same. Ching spends the rest of his time in that era to try and capture Fung San, keeping his promise to the emperor.

This is almost a cutesy kind of movie. The concept is Biao comes into present day, trying to figure things out to capture Fung San, and he meets Maggie Cheung, who is a whore, and she keeps him in her house. The beginning is hilarious. Biao is really good at doing slapstick and being totally ignorant. He tries to figure out what all this stuff is in Maggie Cheung's house. When he first goes inside, he tells her that someone messed up her house. When he sees that so much is electrical, he starts saying "electric stove, electric lamp, electric well (toilet)" and when Cheung is sitting in a chair he yells out "electric chair!" It's funny. There's some very very minor romance which keeps Ching as a royal guard, and Wah plays a slimy womanizer and thief in today's world.

There are three fights between Biao and Wah. The first is when they had just come into modern day. They're on a snowy mountain and fight with swords at first, then Wah uses spikes on his elbows. Not very exciting really, some fast moving around and sparks.

Next one takes place on top of a car that's attached to a crane hook, way up in the air. They do some cool stuff on here too like holding onto the side above the bay and tumbling all over the car seats (it's an open Suzuki type car), and Biao falls way down into the bay. Wah jumps really far down onto a bunch of boxes on a ship. But was it really them who were doing the stunts? It's hard to say because the shots were taken from very far away.

The last fight is way better though. They first sword fight, which is filmed pretty well so you can see exactly what's happening. They both do some acrobatics, like an arial off a big box for Biao and Wah doing one of those jumping half-arial ones, and when Wah cuts Biao's sword, they run to the Wheel again which is on display. Wah does a decent stunt here (if it's him) where he jumps from the railing inside to the wheel which is a good 9 feet away, and this is done from high up. Biao comes in and Wah shoots at him and Biao does front handsprings to front flips to front handsprings to front flips in succession. Cool. Finall they get into a fist fight which I liked a lot, even though there weren't any distinct styles. Wah had his hands open, Biao had his closed, as I think you would expect. A few stunts, like Biao being flung into the air and smashing through a display case and Wah doing the same only with his head. It's cool, but not awesome.

Maybe you'll notice that I'm not raving over this movie. It's a fun movie and everything, I liked it, but the action was not very, um, well it wasn't very cinematic I guess. The showdown wasn't done in a light that said 'showdown' but instead was all blue and green and red, like a rainbow, so I wasn't too excited about it. There is a scene in the beginning, though, where Biao defends Cheung against 4 guys (one of them is Tai Po) just by putting his index and middle finger together and touching them in certain spots, and they freeze. That part was cool, but still it only lasted for maybe 30 seconds.

So it's a cute movie, fun story, light action, it's still good but not really my type.

6.5/10 - I felt a little let down actually because I expected more from Biao in the action dept. As for the plot and Biao's and Wah's acting jobs, it was all good.

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

3/5 - I expected more from Wah and Biao.

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