King Of Robbery
CAST

Simon Yam
Roy Cheung
Lee Yuen Wah
Bowie Lam
Chin Kar Lok

ACTION
Chin Kar Lok
WRITER

Lau Wing Kin

PRODUCER
Chan Chi Suen
DIRECTOR

Billy Chung

RATING
   King Of Robbery
King Of Robbery
AKA : N/A
Year : 1996     Reviewer : Phil Mills

After escaping from a mental asylum, Boss Sing (Yam) teams up with his former gang members to go on a robbing spree that is practically unstoppable.  The one small resistance comes in the form of the local police so they stop off at an arms dealer to pick up some AK-47s that put out some serious firepower.  Several killings later and Sing has become top of the most wanted list with a one million dollar price tag on his head.  When he becomes involved with a local woman the gangs loyalty is stretched to the limit and questions begin to get asked about the priorities of the leadership.  As the cops get one step closer will the gang be able to pull together and escape with their blood stained earnings or will the bickering from within tear them apart?

 

 

A promising cast struggle to propel this wannabe arthouse movie into anything that is remotely comprehensible as a complete film.  Certainly for the opening thirty minutes the characterisation and story go absolutely nowhere and all it boils down to is one insane gang going on the rampage using cheap effects and what appears to be a single man running around with a camera shooting it all.  After the initial (insert sarcastic tone here) excitement the film then decides that it needs to make more of itself and a police officer is introduced in an attempt to create a game of cat and mouse between the law and Simon Yam's character but because we know so little about our so called anti-heroes the audience can't associate with them in any possible way.  Various camera techniques are also inserted to try and 'beef up' the content with the use of freeze frames, blurred replays (which is incredibly annoying as one entire scene is shown twice in a row) and the constant use of a hand held camera that only succeeds in making the production look like a home made family video.

 

 

On the plus side Simon Yam is as mean and moody as ever even if he has practically nothing to work with and Roy Cheung pops up as yet another Triad henchman with a hankering for world domination.  Action choreographer Chin Kar Lok also gets to appear in front of the camera for a brief cameo as one of the gang members but even all of this combined talent can do nothing to save a film that doesn't have any kind of solid groundwork.

Despite a couple of average action scenes, some nice shots of Hong Kong streets and valid attempts at acting, this film was doomed from the beginning.  No plot, no characters and no budget is always a formula for a no hoper.

Distributor : Universe
Region : 0 (NTSC)
Running Time : 94 mins
Video :
Letterboxed print of a film that was obviously shot on the cheap. The DVD suffers from an overall soft look and several scenes contain noticeable scratches and speckles. Blacks are also pretty poorly handled as it is often incredibly difficult to decipher what is happening during the night scenes.
Audio :
Cantonese and Mandarin DD 2.0 with burnt on traditional Chinese and English subtitles. Annoyingly none of the written text is subtitled which is distracting considering the opening blurb and final comments all appear on the screen in text. There are also a couple of moments when crucial lines go unsubtitled which could mean I missed out on some remotely interesting subplot points but I doubt it.
Extras :
None.
Notes :
N/A
King Of Robbery
King Of Robbery
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