My Father is a Hero
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Jet Li, Tze Miu, Yu Rong Guang, Anita Mui, Ken Lo, Ngai Sing

Released in America as The Enforcer.

Kung Wei (Li) and his son, Siu Ku (Miu) become implicated in a gang's constant desire for money. When Kung Wei enters the gang as an undercover officer, Siu Ku tries to come after him, which starts to cause suspicion among the gang members. Kung Wei has to fake his identity and act as though the kid is some stranger.

This is one of the newer Jet Li movies, and probably one of the better newer ones as well. Though not as good as some of his other ones in terms of action, the acting itself and the sets and overall quality of the production make it a very good looking piece. Tze Miu, maybe 10 or 11 years old at the time, does a very very good job and makes a great partner to Jet Li. He can also act pretty realistically, for example when the uncle is dying, he shakes his head around like you'd expect a person of his age to do. Plus, he's more agile than any little kid I've ever seen. He has a little fight with his school mates, who all do the normal punch, kick thing from Hong Kong, and shows off good maneuvers, as well as in the beginning during a martial arts competition.

Yu Rong Guang is a slimy character who runs the gang. I really liked how he did this role, constantly cocking his head to one side as though he has some kind of disorder. Guang makes a good crazy guy. He wears sunglasses the whole movie though, which means that putting a stunt double in for him was simple, and was done quite frequently during the last scene. He has 3 fights with Jet Li, one on a roof top which basically isn't anything at all besides some slow motion of Guang throwing his hand around, and then one in an alley which is very short, but extremely fast. Jet Li tosses his elbows around and around like it's nothing, and Guang does some good looking kicks with his punches and blocks. The last fight between them is on the cruise ship where there are bombs planted everywhere. The only highlight of this fight is Guang who kicks very high a few times, and then uses his trench coat as a sort of punch-hider against Jet, which looked pretty cool. Ken Lo and Ngai Sing join in for an undercranked moment where the three of them kick at Jet Li. It's pretty lame looking. Guang has a double almost the entire time, and there isn't any technique besides "they're kicking, I block". Then the three of them lift their legs up in the air for intimidation, thanks to wires (I can't stand that). Jet Li even has a double after that when he's going up some stairs and taking shortcuts. At the beginning, though, he gets ahold of some tongfas and whacks 30 guys or so, and it's impressive just to watch him and keep your eyes off the others.

Anita Mui could fool me. As far as I know she has no martial arts experience, but she made me wonder a little. Mui looks good when she moves around, plus she's an attractive person anyways. But what I've noticed is that when an actor moves well, they start looking attractive on the screen, which might be what's happening here. But when an attractive person moves in jerky ways, like Richard Norton or Mark Chen, they all of a sudden look like idiots. Mui fights Jet for a few seconds in the dark, nothing special at all besides some fast camera angles and multiple cuts, and she fights some guys with cleavers and rolls onto a table.

But what about Ken Lo and Ngai Sing? Nothing? Not really anything for them in this movie besides at the end when they just kick. Ken Lo and Ngai Sing are VERY capable individuals, both of them could have made a great trio with Guang, but nothing came out of it worthwhile. A waste of talent, even on Guang's part. But Guang got to act, which was exciting enough for me, even though Ken Lo (who played a similar role in Mahjong Dragon) and Ngai Sing (Bodyguard from Beijing) hardly acted at all. So, it makes me frustrated to see capable people on screen not doing anything worth their time. Oh and I might as well add that Tze Miu and Jet Li form a duo at the end where Jet puts him on a rope and tosses him at the three enemies like a yoyo. Terrible. I have no clue what Cory Yuen (the action director) was thinking.

The movie set a good mood, but basically the action sucked. Acting good, action bad. Seems to be the new norm for HK films.

6/10 - Had there been less wirework, more hand to hand action, more Jet Li vs. Guang, more Ken Lo, more Ngai Sing, more Tze Miu without wires, AND MORE JET LI VS GUANG, then it would have been awesome. 5 good action actors could make a movie shine, look at Buddhist Fist where Yuen Shun I and the monk make the entire movie worthwhile, that could have been doubled and a half here. Too bad.

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

3/5

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