Country: Hong Kong

‘Three’ could be the least involving, least exciting action thriller in recent memory. That it has Johnnie To behind it is a particularly sad thing to report.

Although not his most important film and certainly not his most famous, ‘Three Against The World’ is a welcome addition to the Andy Lau canon and certainly worth catching.

‘Three Of A Kind’ is harmless enough as a stand-alone feature despite its serious flaws. It isn’t necessarily painful to watch, but any film that has such a lack of creativity is hardly going to inspire.

An eclectic and compelling triumvirate of screen darkness, it would be a shame if this marked the end of the ‘Three’ experiment. How about a film from female directors for the next instalment?

It may be To’s intention to slightly alienate the audience with characters stuck in limbo, without any explanations, but, if this is the case, he cannot be too surprised to learn that this is an uninvolving film.

Admittedly some of the action is passable but the rest of the movie is generally so damn depressing and sloppy that I wouldn’t personally want to sit through it again.

If like me, you have already come to terms with how often Jackie does use doubles, compared to how much we are led to believe, then the film is worth four stars due to the quality car and fight action.

While ‘Tiger Cage’ is not quite as good as the amazing sequel, it is certainly a flick which no Hong Kong, or action fan should miss out on.

This really isn’t a truly great cinematic ‘film’, but one which moves at a frenetic, action-packed pace while fittingly bringing an end to the fabulous 80’s style action.

It is a welcome addition to the series without offering anything new. If you liked films such as ‘In the Line of Duty 4’ or ‘Tiger Cage’ then this is definitely for you.

‘Tiger On The Beat’ is a surprisingly successful outing that proves Liu Chia-Liang was just as capable of handling modern day actioners.

There are odd glimpses of entertainment in ‘Tiger On The Beat 2’, but not enough to make this a recommended film to even hardcore action fans.