Friday, December 30, 2011

Savior Of The Soul (Hong Kong, 1991)

Savior Of The Soul starts out with an amazing sci-fi prison break, has a couple of good action scenes in the middle and ends with an innovative fight sequence but it is also full of bad low brow, not funny comedy scenes, that I would only recommend it to die hard Hong Kong film fans. Some Hong Kong films try to appeal to everyone. In the 80's and 90's it was common for entire families to go to the cinema together so film makers would have scenes for every member. Intense action for adult males, tear jerk romance for adult females, broad comedy to appeal to grandparents, and potty humor for the kids. One way to make films this way is to have multiple directors. In Savior Of The Soul you have Corey Yuen to oversee the intense action (with martial arts direction by Yuen Tak), Jeff Lau to direct the comedy and David Lai to do the rest. This can lead to schizophrenic movies. Sometimes very good schizophrenic movies. Savior of the Soul does not hold together as a whole film. Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Anita Mui, Carina Lau and Kenny Bee round out the cast. It is streaming on netflix. Here is the opening sequence on youtube.

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