Money Laundry
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).
DVD Information:
Distributed by WideSight
The transfer is decent - clean and sharp.
Letterboxed
Cantonese and Mandarin language tracks
Subtitles: Burnt on Chinese and English
6 Chapters
There are no previews for any film.
The subs are easy to read - as a note the voices
are synchronized terribly to the moving lips.