4 Star

Hard Slaps with Slap Stick

Actor, stuntman, and well seasoned director Chia-Yung Liu (The Treasure Hunters, Once Upon a Time in China) brings us his penultimate film. He delivers an all out action comedy with this explosive buddy cop film. When Robocop was on the Hong Kong DVD stands, Sammo Hung (Warriors Two & The Prodigal Son, Encounter of the Spooky Kind) and Karl Maka (Mad Mission, Mad Mission 4) were the Kings of Kung-Fu.

From the start, we see the style of this film as Skinny (Karl Maka), a CID in the Hong Kong police force is undercover as a convenience store worker when three guys come into his store and start giving him trouble, the machete’s and a pistol kind of trouble. But Skinny is a professional and soon has the situation under control.

There is something afoot at the Circle K.

When skinny lets the robbers go they run into his partner Fatty (Sammo Hung, Three Films With Sammo Hung, THE LUCKY STARS 3-Film Collection) who proceeds to get more information out of them about their boss, the drug running Johnny (Tai-Bo, Police Story, Millionaires Express) and where he might be doing his next deal.

The pair turn up at the shopping mall, where they expect to find Johnny doing his dirty deals, but Fatty straight away spots a suspicious vehicle, just as our Johnny steps onto the pavement. The car is for him, but Skinny makes his move and chases him down the street, he catches him with some fancy fruit work.

Meanwhile, Fatty is alerted to a serious situation as an alarm goes off, and a woman says there is a robbery taking place upstairs. Skinny is nowhere to be seen, so Fatty goes up himself, grabbing a pair of tights (pantyhose) on the way. The robbery is in full progress, so Fatty don’s his disguise and starts robbing the hostages as the robbers grab precious jewellery.

Now we see why this film was made. This is Sammo Hung‘s tribute to the late great Bruce Lee (Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, Enter The Dragon, The Big Boss, The Green Hornet (TV Series)). We see Fatty do all the trademark moves of the martial arts legend.

Johnny is just a stepping stone to get to Prince Dak (Ming Yan Lung, A Better Tomorrow II, The Beloved Son of God), the big cheese in the HGK drug scene. Along the way to catching him, there will be cross-dressing drug dealers, a car chase that will make Mercedes owners cringe, and lots more top-notch martial arts. Skinny Tiger Fatty Dragon is great comedy, with the slickest Kung-fu.