Country: Hong Kong

When the main story takes centre stage, the viewer’s interest is likely to be lost and the plot-holes difficult to reconcile.

‘All About Women’ is hard work, something I never thought I’d be writing about a Tsui Hark film.

‘All For The Winner’ is a fun all-round movie with a particularly pleasing performance from Stephen Chow.

‘All Night Long’ is a vehicle for four fine actresses and a film-maker who may not have made a significant contribution to Asian cinema, yet shows with this production that his skills are worthy of merit.

It’s such a shame that one of Lam’s more appealing roles is hamstrung by unusually poor direction from Tsui Hark.

Despite the weakness of its central performance, ‘All The Wrong Spies’ does incorporate the zest of the Cinema City films that dominated the early 80s.

It has to be admitted that there are some decent moments within the film and it certainly brings more smiles to the face than many a Chinese New Year comedy of the past.

There’s still enjoyment to be had in this Hong Kong comedy though as long as the potential viewer is willing to forgive its various shortcomings.

Chow Sing-Chi completists may want to seek it out, but everyone else should divert their attention to his many more accomplished films.

Once again, Wu Ma has delivered an independent genre flick that is involving, utilising his excellent cast well and making a very predictable story about revenge something a little different.

The best advice I would give to anyone is to stick with this excellent production through its slower moments as there is much to savour here.

It is a diverting 90 minutes with a few well constructed scenes scattered throughout, but this hardly compensates for its waste of potential.