Gunmen (1988)
Reviewed by: mrblue on 2004-06-18
Gunmen takes place in the 1930's, and has Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Mark Cheng, Waise Lee and David Wu playing a group of friends who are captured during the Chinese civil war and tortured by an over-zealous officer (Adam Cheng). After they manage to escape, Tony heads to Shanghai and becomes a cop. Opium smuggling is running rampant, and the big boss happens to be the same officer that imprisioned Tony during the war. After his partner is killed by Cheng, Tony swears revenge, but his by-the-book boss (Elvis Tsui) will have none of it. Eventually, Tony tracks down his friends and enlists their aid to try and shut down the opium smuggler for good.

Like most of Kirk Wong's films, Gunmen is a gritty look at crime and punishment. The movie starts out with a bloody interrogation scene and rarely lets up from there. Through the work of Fung Hak On and Bruce Law, there are several outstanding action scenes that will make Hong Kong action fans remember why they started watching the genre in the first place. One notable bit has one man being set on fire and then iginiting several other men while bouncing around while a ferocious gunfight is occurring.

Wong's direction also works -- for the most part. Gunmen does meander during the second act, as Tony must decide between his wife (Carrie Ng) and daughter or a hooker (Elizabeth Lee) he is falling for. Kirk Wong's films are not normally known for strong female characters, and Gunmen is no exception. It was hard to care for either of the female leads, because there was so little to them. I would have also liked to see some of the other characters (especially Elvis Tsui's) fleshed out more. There is a good deal of character development, but almost none of it really seems to go anywhere.

Even with these faults (which, frankly, could be leveled at many Hong Kong movies of the time) Gunmen is a solid picture that ends with a bang -- literally. In one of the more unexpected turns that I have seen, the drug lord is brought down, but not in a way that you might predict. It satisfyingly brings to a close one of the better crime action/dramas that this reviewer has seen in quite a while. Gunmen might not be anything fancy or mind-blowing, but in this day and age of watered-down PG-13 garbage from both sides of the ocean, it was nice taking a trip back to HK film's "golden age".

[review from www.hkfilm.net]