Millionaire's Express
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung, Eric Tsang, Lam Ching Ying, Yuen Wah, Dick Wei, Richard Norton, Yasuaki Kurata, Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Ng, Hung Yan Yan, Yukari Oshima, many others

Millionaire's Express has many many stars, and yet I wasn't extremely impressed. Why is that? What happens when so many great action stars get together and the movie still isn't wonderful? It must be either the director, choreographer, producer, or something. I don't understand it. So much potential was here, and what I watched wasn't what it could have been. It takes place in the old west (oddly enough) and has a very dirty look, which could have been handled well but wasn't.

Surely, though, there is lots of action anyways. It starts off with a robbery, fire, some fights, and all sorts of stuff. Biao jumps off a roof too, which I have on the Movie Stunts Page, and there are lots of other things that were individually great. Sammo jumps out of a very high tree in the beginning, and I wonder if he had some kind of harness because this thing must have been 50 feet high, whereas Biao was around 25 feet up and landed on padding. Yuen Wah doesn't get any action, he just plays a no-namer who goes to jail with Lam Ching Ying, who also doesn't get any action, and Eric Tsang, who is funny as always. There's a part where a woman falls out of a building and bellyflops onto the ground after the incompetant fire dept. can't hold a catch mat together.

That brings me to another thing: comedy. There isn't a whole lot mainly because it wasn't a funny plot, which was centered around a train robbery and finding a map. Richard Ng is funny just walking around, and it's always a laugh to hear Eric Tsang make himself into an idiot. Other than that there isn't much worthwhile comedy.

As I said, the action left me wanting more and better. There are 2 good fights. Biao fights Sammo in one, and Dick Wei in another. Both are based around the same premise, though; punch high or low, kick high or low, and grab occasionally, but they're still executed very well. Biao and Sammo fight well, but Biao is much more talented here than Sammo. He throws reverse roundhouses like they're nothing, and chains them with punches and more kicks. Sammo throws a few punches and tosses Biao against the roof above and behind. Biao and Wei fight a great one though. They're both fast, they get equal time, and Wei gets to block with his leg, which is very cool. Biao also rolls up the railings on a staircase while Wei follows, and they ensue the fight on the balcony, and here it gets even more intense. Wei can punch FAST. He throws five punches at Biao one time, left, right, left, and then a right punch IMMEDIATELY followed by a left which I thought was one punch when I watched it on my old PC. I think that if you have this movie running at 25 frames per second you'll miss the first punch because it's so quick. Biao works so well with Wei here that I took the agonizing time to memorize the whole thing.

Rothrock fights Sammo after that. Rothrock doesn't look good in a fight with Sammo, sorry. She has a long-spiked hairdo and a turkey stuffed in her pants. Her movements are outshined by Sammo easily, who flows very well and does some Bruce Lee Wing Chun to teach her a lesson. She tries to do an axe kick on him at the end but he picks her up and SLAMS her back onto the ground. I cheered.

Kurata fights Norton, which isn't very good looking. Norton actually does a good job unlike in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars, and Kurata stands in a meditating position, which doesn't work out too well for him. Oshima is silly and does some stupid anime-cartoony-jumps and landings where she kneels for too long before getting up. I don't like that.

Then someone who I think may have been Hwang Jang Lee takes on a room of guys and the reason I think it's him is because he does a triple kick, the same one as in Hitman in the Hand of Buddha on one guy. But he tries to make a kick-to-backflip against a guy holding a table look good, but uses a wire and takes too long to land, ruining the entire move. Too bad. His kicks, overall, look really good here though. He fights Sammo and Biao and his kicks look good again.

Could have been so much better. With the right settings and choreography (and less dependance on foreigners), it could have easily been a 10.

7.5/10

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

4/5 - Could have been better, less weapons and stuff, more fists.

Return to the reviews page