Money Laundry
Director: Billy Chan
Year: 2000
Rating: 2.0
Jade Leung’s appearances
on the big screen are such a rarity these days that I tend to approach each
with a sense of excitement . . . and dread. In the past five years her films
have rarely been very good – but every now and then you will be surprised
with something odd and interesting like Phantom of Snake. This one though
needs to be opened with a handkerchief over ones' nose – the odor emitting
from this one has a bad smell to it. It’s hard to imagine that this actually
played in the theaters – it has that straight to video look and it is hard
to imagine who the audience could possibly be for this type of low budget
bore except for those die hard Jade Leung fans like myself. The question
is – are there any others out there? In
her film career Jade has played ruthless assassins, suicidal cops, revenge
seeking females – but perhaps none of them were more frightening than her
role in this one . . . a finance loan officer! I get chills just thinking
about it – Jade behind a big desk lending out money and setting interest
rates. It’s almost more than a poor boy can take.
She has come up with the brilliant financial plan of lending money to college
students who have no assets and no credit history. One group headed by John
Tang immediately takes the money and opens a store that sells pirated VCDs!
One customer comes in and asks for the film “To Where He Belongs” – I wanted
to warn him to avoid it like the plague – it is almost as bad as this one!
It turns out that her firm actually launders money for the triads and a
cop (Ken Wong) asks her to help them out. Of course she does – and this leads
to . . . not very much. Jade does have two fights – but they are really
poorly done and it is all too evident that she is being doubled consistently.
Ah, Black Cat where are you. Oh that’s right – in jail.
It was at least interesting to see John Tang. He was in all those UFO films
about the same character growing up and going to university -Yesterday This,
Yesterday That, Over the Rainbow – but it’s a bit sad to see him still in
college after all these years!
My rating for this film: 2.0 (only for many close
ups of Jade and watching her run like hell at one point).