Snuff Bottle Connection
May 24, 2001
Review
Format: Cropped Mandarin VCD
Stars: John Liu Chung Leung, Yuen Fui, Roy Horan, Hwang Jang Lee, Yan Yee Kwan (cameo)

John Liu plays a Manchurian officer who has found Hwang Jang Lee meeting with a Russian government official in hopes of giving some of China's land to the Russians. Liu goes to Hwang to stop him from completing the transaction.

I put this VCD in expecting some great old school action, and most of it was crap actually. Nobody was really flailing arms or anything, but sometimes they were just slow and unimpressive. Yuen Fui takes control of the movie's main character, which is a shame, and the little kid from Sleeping Fist is in it and is aweful, as expected. However, whenever John Liu enters the scene, things just get GODO all of a sudden. I don't understand. At one point Fui is fighting terribly, but Liu comes in and BAM, best scene so far. But I'll get more into that later. There's a good amount of action, just not good action all the time.

The first part has a cameo by Yan Yee Kwan (one of the villians from OUATIC 1, but we don't get to see him fight really. The scene has 2 Russian dorks making trouble in a restaurant, saying bad phrases like, "Here, drink this wine. Ha ha ha" with their terrible accents and forcing the waiter to drink a gallon of wine. Naturally they have to fight and the one with blonde hair is so aweful, he tries to do some worthy kicks and punches but can't manage anything. The bigger guy doesn't get too intricate which is good, but instead throws strong looking punches and does some strongman throws on people. There's also a cameo by Yuen Biu, he does some falls here and there and gets beaten up. Overall it's an aweful scene though. The 2 white men are your typical "white men are ugly" type. Yan Yee Kwan fights against them in the next scene, clearly better and doing acrobatics, but gets shot.



Yuen Fui and a little kid (who cares who) make appearances next at a restaurant. The kid is terribly annoying, could have been edited out for all I care. He always says "Ai-yoo", over and over. Flexible little kid, but he's slow and undeveloped and the role doesn't suit him, Fui embarasses him though. When Fui is at home he's attacked, I seriously doubt he does any of his own acrobatics, the guy doesn't impress me. Slow movements, he's stiff, doesn't move around much, basic attacks. The kid comes back and does acrobatics but terrible fighting, everything is SLOW. Camerawork is excellent, but the cropped vcd is like a huge frame.



John Liu suddenly comes into the movie and, well, this is no longer Snuff Bottle Connection, it's something else. Liu and Fui have excellent choreography, the camera makes an even better turn, they get faster, the timing is great. Why why why? Why is this fight so good? Honestly I was falling asleep with these other ones, the choreography was aweful until now, and then this? HUH!? Maybe it's Mr. Liu, but it's too early to tell. The moves here are admirable, perfectly timed, no stops. Liu's kicking is planted in his handwork masterfully. Awesome. Then I had hope.



But my hope was lost, immediately. The next fight was another terrible one with the Russians facing a bunch of Asians, ripping through them mercilessly, looking aweful. The kid comes and fights the pretty-boy, god it's terrible. No talent exhibited here. Fui comes, slow fighting occurs (why this after the last scene?!) and Ron Horan fires a gun to stop the fight. Rediculous.



And who the hell does Ron Horan think he is doing this? He's ugly as hell and doesn't belong even in this travesty of a film. He does a jump kick which looks terrible.



Fui follows someone to the middle of nowhere and fights with him, which is a slight improvement on the other crap in this but not as good as the one with Liu. It lacks the crispness in motion I suppose. Fui then is attacked by some guys with blades, more junk. Fui is doubled, the enemies are slow, the whole thing is aweful until, thank heavens, and he speeds things up with good kicking, as expected. His aggressors are better when he fights too, so weird. I don't get it at all.



Hwang (a hopeful high point) and the man with the claw from Secret Rivals 2 fight together for training purposes. Hwang, sadly, has a fan the whole time and looks incredibly awkward. His opponent uses some weird style where he points his finger the whole time. Dunno what's happening here.



But then Liu and Fui fight off more bad guys (in the dark) and Liu's scene, again, is the best, while Fui is a little slower but better paced this time. I dunno, I honestly think that the parts of this movie were choreographed by different people, maybe Liu did his own, and Fui got the rut of everything. Liu has longer cuts as well, and his moves are all his own. He has no acrobatics, flipping all over the place, only solid moves. Fui's are typical Yuen clan routine, with flips done by a double, etc. So that's my theory. Anyways, Liu looks better here, that's why I didn't even capture Fui.



Next the bad guy from SR2 fights the messenger, and this is another fight that lacks the finesse of Liu's fights in this. Though it still seemed to get better here, they are lazy, throwing punches like they're rowing boats. Good camerawork, sometimes tracking along very nicely (again the cropping makes this look worse than it actually is), but this isn't impressive. Hwang jumps in with a fan and does one of those "I'll kill you in 45 moves." He does almost no kicking and his hand movements aren't good, I blame the choreographers. Also this scene has heavy doubling, the Yuens clearly do all the acrobatics, their wigs even pop off a little.



But then there's another scene with Liu. No I'm not biased, his fights are the highlights of this film. Fui is in this scene but luckily gets beaten to pieces and has his hands smashed (unfortunately he recovers later). Very painful looking. The little kid is tied up, good thing. He takes on 5 or so dimwits with kicks, good looking ones too. Chain kicks are exceptional, and he does some awesome spinning that makes him look like a powerful tornado in the middle of this group. Watch for Yuen Biu do a great backfall in this scene as well. He's everywhere. Cropping hurts this scene though, there's no pan and scanning on this vcd. Still, Liu's kicks are great as always, and he's such a powerful character in a manchurian garb. Reminds me of Donnie.



The Russians come again and fight the little kid. Fui is sick and rolls around trying to avoid their swords. Liu comes in and rescues them, doing more nice kicking against the Russians, who are of course terrible here. I didn't really even try with the captures.



Hwang gets in a small fight against an old friend and still has his fan, annoying. Handwork seems sloppy and slow, some kicking by Hwang but nothing great.



Liu and Fui find the guy from SR2 and first dodge a plethora of arrows, which is stupid, Fui can't even do good dive rolls. He throws knives for a while. Liu is in style though, and grabs some arrows and throws them, ah better. Liu and Fui then take on some spear-wielding villians, Liu kicking against one and showing some handwork here and there. Fui is weak, his attacks are lame. Liu is doubled for his spearwork by the villian from SR2 himself though, and sometimes you see half of his face, terribly obvious. Liu has some of his own spearwork though and it's just as good as the doubled parts.



I guess you could say then that Liu fights his double. It's like Liu didn't take crap, he said "My fights will be way better than anyone else's fights in this" and he was right. He has a good, long, crisp exchange with the guy, using long hand to hand scenes followed by chain kicking, which is perfectly done of course. Some excellent shots, some from above, from low, side, everything is done well here. More proof that Liu is the only good thing about this movie.



So I expected something great from the finale. Nope. Ron Horan's fight is, thankfully, cut very short (he gets about 10 hits in and he's dead), while Liu gets Hwang. Sorry Hwang buffs, including myself, but Hwang + fan isn't very good. Maybe because that damn thing is dangling everywhere he uses it, but god this isn't a good finale. Doubles are everywhere too, the Yuen clan insisted on acrobatics for THEM. Hwang does almost no kicking, again (but is doubled for some of the good kicks), Liu has very little, Fui is aweful as always. I guess my main grudge, though, is that there are doubles everywhere, in places they really shouldn't be, not just for single moves but entire sequences. You know I just don't wanna do any more capturing for this fight. Also the choreography is sometimes rediculous with weird looking blocks and aweful punching techniques. I'm done, no more captures for this one.



I dunno, I'm really confused on this. I hated this movie altogether. Liu's scenes weren't enough for me because, basically, they shouldn't have been the only high points of the film. Even the finale was terrible, Hwang was wasted. The Yuens were selfish on this. Agh too many complaints. Yan Yee Kwan was killed way too early too, he was probably the best rounded person in the movie. I consider this a bad kung fu movie (again with the exception of Liu's scenes, minus the ending). But if you like Liu you might as well get this.

2/5

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