The plotless plot revolves around drug deals, the nasty CIA (which is always depicted as scum buckets in HK films) and any excuse for a prolonged fight sequence that doesn’t attract the attention of any extras (because there aren’t any). Logic takes a real leap here, as cops cannot seem to hit their target with long barreled or short barreled pistols, even at close range, while witnesses that get shot in the arm, back, leg and chest don’t die and can recover in time for a big kung fu fight with the kidnapper of his mother. Even better, Cynthia Khan can enter a building with 20+ cops to arrest five guys and still get caught up in a long fist fight with an ugly white bitch and not have anyone around to help her (perhaps her backup is in the bathroom taking a whiz?). Incredible.

Cynthia’s co-star is a young Donnie Yen, who can fight; Michael Wong, who’s double can fight; and Sunny Yuen, who can fight, but not act. Yuen Woo-Ping directed, but he’s much better at period pieces. Cynthia Khan loves to smile and after 10 minutes it’s annoying. It seems that in the 80’s, Asian kung-fu chicks had to run around and smile while they kicked ass. Michael Yeoh did the same thing in MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS, among other classic fun “Fu” films. Thankfully, in the 90’s, directors realized the girls should kick ass and look as though they are not just sparring for fun.

HONG KONG LEGENDS has released this film a Region 2 DVD in the PAL format. The anamorphic transfer is almost free of specs and dirt and that is clearly due to HKL’s restoration procedures. While daylight scenes look detailed, with good color balance, scenes at night are a problem. At the 35 minute mark, an entire scene becomes bogged down and plagued with compression artifacts that were just massive on my 47” HDTV. I have never seen so many artifacts on an HKL release (even DRIVE) and after looking at the bit rate for the scene in question, which was always below 5mb per second, it’s clear what went wrong. This is an RSDL disc and I would like to know how so little space was left for the picture’s bit rate. Extras are not all that extensive and the film is only 91 minutes (PAL), so why the low bit rate? 6.5mb per second should be the absolute minimum for darker scenes. 7.5 to 8 is recommended. Thankfully, this is only one scene.

If all the animated menus, “American Voice Over Man” Biography segment, and frivolous promo trailers take up that much space, then the menus need to be toned down, Voice Over Man needs to go (that’s needed no matter what) and the half dozen promos need to be condensed into one 2 to 3 minute promo showing all of HKL’s titles.

The Cantonese soundtrack has been remixed to DD5.1 and it is quite good, though hearing those “Heeyaas”, “Hiyooahh”, “Grrss” and grunts at reference level gets old real quick. Some D&B films had lousy dubbing and this one was no exception. The music score expands to the surrounds and that helps, but it is kind of dated. There is an English dub on the disc, but I didn’t bother to hurt my ears with it.

I think I paid $16.00 for this release and I have to say, it was sort of worth it. This film is really only for dedicated fans, so buyer beware.