In the Line of Duty
AKA Royal Warriors
1/15/01
Review
Format: Dubbed Widescreen VHS (Taiseng)
Stars: Michelle Khan (Yeoh), Henry Sanada, Michael Wong, Lam Dai Wai

The first in the In the Line of Duty series. This one is about 3 brothers bent on reuniting, their slogan being "Live together, die together." After the death of one of the brothers, another one will do whatever it takes to get revenge for him. I expect action in the beginning of one of these movies, and Michelle Khan fights 2 guys some place outside near a parade. They both have short swords, which are Japanese and I don't remember the name for them. Khan grabs a kendo stick and fights with that, but it's short, much like other ILD beginning fights.



She goes on a plane and fights some bad guys alongside Sanada. The men are familiar but I can't place any of them. Michael Wong is in this scene too, ugh. I think he's speaking English as well because his mouth was moving into the dialogue, plus he knows English fluently without an accent. Then 2 guys with knives try to highjack the plane. Sanada takes one and looks good, sort of unorthodox in a way by playing it cool the whole time and not showing off. Khan fights him near the bathroom. His double is good but when the actual person is fighting, he swings WAY too high and looks fake. Look at the third picture. He was blocking that kick before it even came at him. Oh well, still it's fast and much like the other In the Line of Duties in terms of choreography.



Man this movie is corny, though. Sanada is playing with a doll and his daughter and pretends to get attacked, she cries, he hugs her, and sad music plays. ??? Then she cries some more at the dinner table and Sanada and his wife go help her. Were they trying to build up the loving relationship among them or what? Well, his wife and kid died, and I didn't care, so I guess they didn't do a good job did they?.



So he chases after the killer, Lam Wai, who looks terrible. He was much more of a villian in Project A 2. There's a chase with lots of cars flying and breaking, while for some reason I really think that Sanada was the one driving the BMW, not some double. I think it's because at one point Sanada just jumps out of his BMW into the bed of Lam Wai's truck, and it's him, definitely. They both get out, Sanada chases Lam into an alley and they have a brawl there, Lam escapes, Sanada follows which brings us to a construction site where Lam throws Sanada into a pit and tries to fill it before he gets out. Khan comes and fights Lam on the tractor which has dirty ready to pour. Intense. Though the whole thing isn't a fight, it's still good because this is an action review, not a martial arts review. I like the car chase and the stuntwork here, especially Sanada's ability to do it all.



Sanada wants a gun, so he gets one from this gang led by John Sham (if that's his name, he's the bad white guy from Pedicab Driver). All Sanada needs are some bullets, and he fights the gang over them. And every time the they're within grabbing distance, Sanada is attacked again and he can't grab the damn bullets, even if they're 2 inches away. Some chopped up action, good kicking from Sanada, and a lame attack from Sham, who doesn't seem to know how to fight here but later learned.



Sanada finds Lam Wai in a night club and gets into a gunfight there. Standard gun stuff, but Sanada does some good stuntwork. After they drop their guns temporarily he and Khan do some kickboxing against Lam, who is obviously doubled for some fighting and all stuntwork. Sanada is still good looking, and it's surprising to see a Japanese HK action star doing regular kickboxing. Reminds me of Oshima. Khan is also good here. But nothing exceptional, just spaced out fighting, but more gunplay at the end.



Michael Wong's double does a nice fall into a building, which I thought I'd take a snap of for you.



The last is pretty varied. Sanada comes in with a car, crashes it and it slides upsidedown with HIM inside, Khan comes with an armoured vehicle and knocks the hell out of a building, and Sanada comes to rescue her when her car gets engulfed in flames. So she runs after the bad guy, one of the brothers, and he swings a chainsaw at her for a while, which is pretty intense. It seems to actually cut through things, rigidly, like it's a real cut. She tosses him around and gets tossed around herself, some good small stuntwork, and a few exchanges with pipes and metal objects. Good brawl stuff, much like in ILD3. Khan kickboxes with him a bit but he can't fight, and she and Sanada make one of the coolest getaways while the entire place explodes. They take off on a little mining cart with a coffin on top. Cool.



Not exactly the content I enjoy for a movie overall, mostly because they could have cut out the shootout in the nightclub, but other than that this is a slightly different way of doing a really good action movie. You get car chases, fighting (of course), explosions, destruction, good stuntwork, and a good vigorous ending to top it all off. Maybe had the shootout been replaced with an all-stunt section or a good car chase, I'd give it a 5/5, and if the fights had been a tad longer (though the one on the plane was fine, good quality stuff) that'd be good too, but I'm gonna give it a

4/5

Michelle Khan, then


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