basically a hong kong version of the 'crying freeman' story, with sam hui in the lead role. it's a pretty standard tale of a man being kidnapped by a secret society with highly evolved martial arts skills, who has his memory erased and is trained to be a killing machine. all is well until one day he runs into his old fiance (maggie cheung) and he decides to leave the society; something that is frowned upon.

entertaining stuff, with some fantastically assembled action sequences that use all manner of stylisation to good effect. the film swings between the serious and the silly at an alarming pace, but it all works out in the end.

good stuff...