Secret Police
Reviewed by Jack Sobjack
I was a bit apprehensive before my first viewing
of Secret Police. With Moon Lee and Alex Fong the stars of this film what
could go wrong? Well, anyone that has seen the classic Angel trilogy (especially
2 & 3) will understand my trepidation towards watching it. As much
as I liked the Angel films I can’t forget the sequels left Moon mysteriously
absent in the finales. Instead, Alex Fong got the spotlight. Now I have
nothing against Alex Fong and I thought he did a good job in those films
but being the Moon devotee that I am I felt the filmmakers used very bad
judgement by not using her more than they did. So this is why I had a bad
feeling about Secret Police.
Now I can honestly say I was right…in part. About
5 minutes into this film it became apparent to me that this was more or
less Alex Fong’s show but Moon does have some bright moments. And she has
a couple of cool fight scenes like the one near the beginning where she
takes out two thieves with a broom or the finale where she’s actually present
to take out a small army of gangsters.
In Secret Police, Alex Fong pretty much hangs
around gangsters, stresses out his girlfriend with his reluctance to commit
and embarrasses his father (who’s a cop) when he gets into trouble. Moon
Lee plays his sister who’s also a cop that is transferred to the station
her father works at. Moon and Alex don’t get along so well. In fact, Moon
can’t stand her brother or his lifestyle.
Tragedy strikes when their father (Ku Feng) is
murdered in cold blood by a hired hitman (Billy Chow). When Moon visits
her dying father in the hospital good old Alex shows up a moment too late
and she rips him a new rear. It really is a moving scene. Moon shows incredible
talent as she goes from the deepest despair from the loss of her father
to the unbridled rage towards her brother.
Moon vows to avenge her father’s death.
There’s much more to this film but I won’t spoil it. There’s a reason this
thing is called Secret Police. Appearing in this film also are Jimmy Lee/Lung
Fong as the main bad guy, Shum Wai as the father’s police partner and Yip
San as Alex’s girlfriend.
Unless I really hate a film, I don’t like wasting
time focusing on the negative aspects of a it (that should be saved for
the discussion boards) so I won’t go into some of it’s flaws. I will say
the general HK cinema fan might not get much out of this but if you are
a Moon fan you’ll certainly appreciate her performance. She looks great
in her fight scenes and basically outclasses everyone in the acting department.
Now some of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking ‘there he goes
again…’ but you must remember something: This review was written for Moon
fans by a Moon fan.
My rating for this film: 6.0