Shanghai Shanghai
3/07/2001
Review
Format: Thai dubbed VCD no subs
Stars: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Meng Hoi, Anita Mui

One thing I hate is when a movie is done in Thai or Vietnamese, and there aren't any subtitles. So, your small understanding of the movie in its original language flies out the window, and you're screwed into watching something totally incomprehensible such as this. Oh well, not the movie's fault. A funnier note is that for the English voices they had some kind of aweful playback device and they sound like they're on CBs or something.

From what I gather, it's a somewhat fun movie, with Biao as the good guy and Sammo as the baddie. Action? There are a few action scenes. One in the beginning is Biao running away from some guys shooting at him, nothing spectacular. Another one is where Biao is at a sideshow circus and there's about 10 seconds of fighting, but it's cut apart stuff, nothing worthwhile really. Then there's this dancing scene between Mui and Biao, and Mui throws some weak punches and bad kicks, gets doubled for some spins, and it's over.



And at the end Anita Mui does some fighting against a bunch of bad guys. One of them is talented and moves pretty quickly, but Mui needs a double sometimes and has a bunch of takes to do some basic things. Some ok kicks from her but she seems too fake.



But those are filler really. What amazed me was the ending fight, and it continues to amaze me to this day. More than the one in Wheels on Meals, more than the one in Project A, more than the one in nearly ANY action movie. On top of that, it's only about 3 minutes long. Sammo and Biao fight eachother in Sammo's estate, which is a huge mansion with a big foyer, which is where the fighting takes place. Biao starts it off and does regular kickboxing, only he seems to go faster than he's ever gone in his LIFE. In Millionaire's Express he was faster, but his moves weren't half as interesting. Here he's got more leg movement and his punches are super interesting. Sammo, who manages to steal the show, uses a sort of long fist technique where each move he does is, well I can't describe it, just look at the pictures below. His arms seem to be perfectly straight at times, and there isn't a limb in his body that goes to rest. If he blocks with one hand, the other hand goes above his head in a defensive position. If he punches with one hand, the other goes the opposite direction, pure to form. They both move at a regular pace, almost a beat, so you can follow along, but it's not 2 beat because at times it starts to speed up, so for the bigger moves they have a beat, smaller ones are faster. Add to that that each punch, block, kick, fall, anything is super fast. They don't wail on eachother with slow, predictable moves, but instead are extremely accurate in how they deliver. One thing to mention is that there are about 3 instances of wires. One is when Sammo does a kick to Biao's chest after jumping in the air, the next is of Biao doing a sort of fadeaway kick, and then Biao does a roundhouse into a column, bouces off with a chest kick to Sammo. But regardless, these moves all look great. While on the subject of Biao, his moves are interesting as well. Take for example his chain punches on Sammo. It goes left punch high, right punch high, another, then low, medium, and then low immedately after, followed by another left high. More beats here, like Da Da Da, Da-ti-da-ti-da Da, then Da Da Da Da POW. What's different about this fight? Exactly what I don't know yet. Let's look more carefully.

The editing and camerawork are probably what trigger such a spurt of joy in me whenever I watch this (Having owned this movie for about 8 months, I've watched this fight so many times, and it STILL bewilders me). Starting off the fight, the two square off, and manage to move to the left against Sammo, something that can only be done by the MOST experienced of movie fighters. Try and map out a fight and move in a direction WHILE doing very intricate blocking and punching. The camera follows this in a panning motion, all in one cut, cut to Biao kicking, cut to Sammo spinning to a low punch, cut Biao block, cut Biao hit and Sammo block, cut Sammo pulls Biao, cut show Biao being pulled, cut Sammo hits Biao. What happens here is again they move to a beat that is so desirable, and the editing goes along with this beat perfectly. Maybe I'm going into this too much, but it's one of my favorite fights of all HK movie goodness.



So, when my final point is that there's nothing really worthwhile in this movie except that end fight, which seemed to constitute my paying $10 for this vcd. Maybe it's the same for you.

4/5 - Yes, just for one fight.

Return to the reviews page