The Four (Hong Kong, 2012)

Gordan Chan and Janet Chun's The Four is the first of a proposed trilogy of kung fu films adapted from the novels of Wen Rui-An. Gordan Chan's best films were in the mid 90's, Fist Of Legend and King Of Beggars. Janet Chun was one of the writers of John Woo's Bullet In The Head and she has been an assistant director on several recent blockbusters, including True Legend and CJ7. The cast features Anthony Wong, Colin Chou, Ronald Cheng and Deng Chao (the albino from Detective Dee). The buzz surrounding the film was that it was going to feature kung fu versus zombies. I had my hopes that we would see "Romero" zombies and it was hard to tell from the trailer. Instead the zombies are reanimated kung fu warriors controlled by needles in their heads. The heroes discover that they cannot defeat the zombies unless they hit them in the head hard enough to knock the needles out and then they promptly forget that nugget of information until 5 minutes into a fight with an army of the undead. The action is good and the zombies are henchmen/cannon fodder for the big boss, but I was hoping for kung fu versus flesh hungry zombies. They are currently filming the sequel.

Herman Yau's On The Edge (2006)

Netflix has recently added a lot of Asian movies to their streaming service and I've decided to review some of them. First up, Herman Yau's On The Edge from 2006. It stars Nick Cheung, Francis Ng, Anthony Wong and Rain Li. After the success of Infernal Affairs, Hong Kong movie theaters were flooded with stories of undercover cops and their struggles as triad members. On The Edge was one of the better ones. Nick Cheung is Harry Boy, a cop who has spend 8 years undercover as a triad member, starting as a street brawler and moving up to a key position under triad boss, Don Dark, played by Francis Ng. After Don Dark is arrested, Harry Boy becomes a regular police officer working with Anthony Wong. Harry Boy is treated with suspicion by his fellow cops, and his only friends are triad members who no longer want anything to do with him. Francis Ng and Anthony Wong are playing roles that they are very familiar with, both of them were in the Infernal Affairs series, and they have worked with Herman Yau many times. Nick Cheung is good as the troubled cop. He made the Election films with Johnnie To around the same time. The movie has some good car chases, courtesy of action director Bruce Law. While not as good as Infernal Affairs or the Election films, On The Edge is definitely worth watching, particularly on netflix streaming.