Female HK police inspector Rachel Yeung is looking forward to seeing her cousin David who has served in the military overseas. They haven’t seen each other for a while and she hopes they can spend some time together. A fellow officer in the military Alan arrives in HK with David and he’s involved in some shady dealings with some people in the intelligence community about selling secrets to foreign buyers. When Alan is murdered by some thugs by accident, David is framed for the crime. He tries to clear his name but this only makes things worse as people from the CIA to the local crime organisation are either trying to kill or kidnap him! The only person that can testify to David’s innocence is May, a teenage girl. Rachel is convinced of her cousin’s innocence but her job is not helped by her superiors wanting to bring David in for questioning. Rachel has always been one to do her job by the book but this time she might have to break the rules if she’s to save her cousin’s life which means going all the way to South Korea to sort the mess out.
Coming off the back of ITLOD 4 which was one of the very best in the franchise, there was a lot of expectation that this movie might be just as good but sadly it isn’t. This movie is the point at which the franchise gradually went down. It does have it’s moments but it just doesn’t stand out from any other generic action movie that was coming out of HK at the time. The uninteresting espionage plot doesn’t help things either. The movie does start off on a bang as Rachel Yeung is chasing after a suspect in a car park and she does a flying kick through a windshield of a moving car before the pair continue scrapping through an alleyway and onto a couple of other moving vehicles. Sadly though, apart from a couple of other good fights this movie is lacking in any real excitement.
The fight choreography whilst competent enough isn’t as good as previous entries because Corey Yuen and Yuen Wo Ping wasn’t involved. Still, I will watch anything with Cynthia Khan and she performs well as Rachel Yeung – dodging bullets and kicking ass. She takes part in a couple of good stunts, one of which has her dangling off the side of a skyscraper! Another sees her chasing after a speedboat at a container terminal which ends with the bad guys’ boat being smashed to pieces by a falling cargo container. The highlight of the movie has to be the girl-on-girl fight between Cynthia and the Australian blonde Kim Maree-Penn (a stuntwoman) in a room full of breakable glass which turns into a swordfight. She also has a good fight with Billy Chow. Thankfully even though the plot is a bit dull, there’s enough action sequences to keep this movie from being boring – one of the stunts to watch out for is a man falling from height and destroying a car roof. The word ouch springs to mind when you see it!! Taiwanese actor David Wu is rather lacklustre as the soldier on the run and I noticed a lack of chemistry between himself and Cynthia Khan. Alvina Kong is wasted as May as she doesn’t have a lot to do in the movie. The same goes for Kim Maree-Penn and Billy Chow.
Tinkering with a formula can play havoc in a successful franchise and that certainly did happen in this movie. The humour that was present in the previous movies has disappeared completely and they go for a deadly serious story instead with more emphasis on the drama. It just doesn’t work out as well as the filmmakers thought it would be.
Overall, this is a movie that will appeal more to Cynthia Khan fans more than anyone else. There’s nothing that really stands out and the plot doesn’t really grab you at all. By all means take a look if you’ve seen the previous 4 movies but I’m sure like myself you’ll end up feeling a little disappointed by the end.
Sadako’s Rating: 3 stars out of 5
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