Tough Beauty and the Sloppy
Shop
Director: Yuen Bun/ Alan Chui
Year: 1995
Rating: 7.0
This is the type
of film that I can really enjoy if I am in the right mood and I must have
been when I saw this because it was ridiculous but a lot of fun. The kind
of film that when you hit someone they go flying across the room or you send
a burst of gunfire in their direction and five guys go down. Yuen Biao
and Cynthia Khan star in this rollicking action comedy. What a great idea
it was to put these two together. One of the Seven Fortunes and one of the
premier “girls with guns” stars. They have terrific chemistry together and
it’s a shame they have not teamed up since.
They are both cops – Yuen from HK and Cynthia
from the Mainland and they both go undercover in the Philippines to catch
some counterfeiting drug smugglers. Before this in an early scene, Cynthia
has a good fight with Yuen Wah (who unfortunately is only in the film for
this one scene) and the stuntman does an incredible fall from the roof through
bamboo scaffolding.
Once in the Philippines they are able to
join up with Waise Lee’s gang, but they are not entirely trusted. This leads
to a scene that had me in tears laughing. Since Yuen and Cynthia are suppose
to be married, they have to share the same bedroom and they suspect that
someone might be eavesdropping. Yuen of course gets fresh with Cynthia and
they start throwing one another around the room, but to the eavesdroppers
it sounds like they are making passionate love. Like I said you have to be
in the right mood. All in all a great low budget film with scads of action
and two great stars. The last twenty minutes is an all out war and the two
of them need to team up to take on Billy Chow in a great three way fight.
The way Chow finally gets it is classic.
