Author: Andrew Skeates

Flying fist first as if it’s from the straight-to-video 90s action movie heyday, ‘Bangkok Dog’ is a no frills, fast and furious, fight film.

Moving from the Shaw Brothers studio to the ones housed at Golden Harvest, Lo Wei and Jimmy Wang Yu bring their considerable talents to this shot in Thailand potboiler that allows Yu to showcase his action talent.

Woo’s remake of his own film is a fun actioner (if one can leave the incessant need to compare and criticise behind) that entertains thanks to its location, assassin gender swap, and some finely staged action.

While ‘Fierce Cop’ flip flops between melodramatic exploitation and a serious examination of trafficking, it thankfully keeps proceedings thundering along with Kenji Tanigaki’s excellent action design.

Timo Tjahjanto continues to reach new action heights with every new film and ‘The Shadow Strays’ continues this trend with violent aplomb.

Loaded with breakneck action, ‘Hunt the Wicked’ gets by on its energetic execution and its two martial arts stars facing off before teaming up.

Some may not appreciate the style-over-substance approach here, but it works well to deliver a sharp, cruel tale of wuxia justice.

While the film does deliver ample bouts of impressive fight action, the film gets a little bogged down in its own seriousness and slipshod back-and-forth timelines.

‘Executioners’ carries over the comic book vibe of the previous instalment but ladens on the seriousness and melodramatics this time around.

Don’t think about it too much, just go along for the ride and bask in the beauty and talent of the incredible action scenes and the trio of leading ladies.

Perhaps not what one might be expecting from all those involved but nevertheless ‘Ode to Gallantry’ is another solid Cheh flick buoyed by a fantastic lead performance from Philip Kwok. 

Frivolous of plot it may be but director Huang Ta makes up for the lack of narrative meat by stuffing the film with superb fight action.