 |
| Courtesy: Arrow Video |
The past few months have seen a long-overdue flurry of top-notch North American boutique releases of Hong Kong films. Movies that have been stuck for years in unreleasable limbo in the US due to long-standing rights issues have at last become available as those rights have expired, and once those floodgates opened, labels like Arrow Video, Shout! Factory, 88 Films, and Criterion have been scrambling to release as many top-quality editions of these hard-to-see-in-region-A Hong Kong classics as quickly as possible. One major Hong Kong director whose films are thriving in this boutique blu-ray renaissance is Sammo Hung. 88 Films made their stateside distribution debut with his action-comedy classic Dragons Forever, starring himself and Jackie Chan, and Shout Select is putting out a box set featuring three more of his beloved Chan collaborations, Winners and Sinners, Wheels on Meals, and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. Now, Arrow Video is getting in on the Sammo Hung revival with their first-rate special edition of his 1986 action-comedy Millionaire's Express, which had previously been very difficult to find in America in any form. Arrow has outdone themselves with this edition, featuring no less than four cuts of the film and a wealth of great extras. But how does the film itself stack up among Hung's prolific filmography?
 |
| Courtesy: Arrow Video |
I will happily say right up front that I am a fan of Sammo Hung's work as a director. In addition to his beloved early-80s comedies like the Lucky Stars trilogy and Dragons Forever, he directed one of Jackie Chan's very best action films - the breathtakingly fun Mr. Nice Guy - and made one of the best pre-Crouching Tiger Wuxia films with 1992's The Moon Warriors, starring Andy Lau and Maggie Cheung (which is a film in desperate need of a great US release from a company like Arrow). At his best, he can blend action and comedy in an irresistibly fun way, and as an actor and stuntman himself, he has an excellent talent for choreographing camera movement into extremely well-shot and kinetic action scenes. So with this lavish special edition being a first-time viewing for me, my expectations for Millionaire's Express were set pretty high. Unfortunately, it became apparent fairly quickly that this is not one of Hung's better directorial efforts. It boasts some excellent stunt work and a very fun last act, but this is a wildly uneven film, with a meandering plot that doesn't hold together, and a balance of tones which really doesn't work. This is one for the Sammo Hung or Hong Kong cinema die-hards only.
The film is styled like a parody of American Westerns, with its early-20th-century rural-China setting filling in for the Old West, and its central premise vaguely based around the Great Train Robbery trope. Sammo Hung stars in the film as a well-intentioned but bumbling thief and con-artist, whose notorious crime many years ago destroyed the livelihood of his beloved hometown. Now he is back, with a hare-brained scheme to bring his town riches and fame to make up for it, having to do with conning the wealthy passengers aboard the titular express train. But several other factions of bad guys are also looking to rob the train, and the town sheriff (Yuen Biao) wants to catch him in the act and make an example of him. On paper that sounds like a pretty solid premise, but in execution, that basic plot gets lost in numerous meandering, goofy subplots and extended setpieces of character antics, to the point that the movie feels like it barely has a plot at all, and is just a series of loosely strung-together sketches. The narrative is too loose and scattered to generate any real tension, and likewise is too broad and silly to develop the characters enough for us to care about them much; they are basically all just archetypes, like the lovable hooligan and the principled cop. Mileage will vary on this last point, but I also didn't find the extremely broad and silly comedy particularly funny, especially since it is largely situational, rather than emphasizing the physical slapstick that Hung (like his friend and frequent collaborator Jackie Chan) is generally very good at.
 |
| Courtesy: Arrow Video |
The movie has a very large cast, as Arrow's slipcover cover shows off, featuring Hong Kong action regulars like Cynthia Rothrock (Righting Wrongs), Richard Norton (Mr. Nice Guy), Dick Wei (The Seventh Curse), Richard Ng (Winners and Sinners) and Shih Kien (Enter the Dragon), but due to the scattered nature of the narrative, none of them get much screen time, basically getting one significant action scene each, while the movie mostly focuses on Hung, Biao, and Rosamund Kwan as Hung's love interest. Hong Kong film fans will enjoy seeing all the familiar faces, but may be disappointed that they don't get more to actually do. However, the three leads are all quite good, with Hung being his usual likable self, even if he is stuck in a weak role, and Biao being the strongest actor in the film, and probably the one who most drives the narrative.
The saving grace of the film, and the only reason why I would say it worth a look, is the action and stunt work. There isn't as much of that as there are in other Sammo Hung films, as this is definitely a comedy first and an action film second, but what is here is very good. There are a few great stunts early on, including a death-defying sequence with a burning building, and the stunts are spread out just enough to keep the film moving along. But the last act is where the movie really comes to life, as the various factions of villains close in on the town, and Hung, Biao, Kwan, and the others must team up in a giant brawl with wall-to-wall action sequences. The last act really has it all, from some fun larger-scale stunts to a lot of great hand-to-hand combat. This is where some of the supporting actors like Rothrock and Wei really get to shine, in fights that show off Hung's trademark action choreography and martial arts background. And as always in his films, Hung choreographs camera movement into his fights extremely well, in a way that fully utilizes his knowledge base as an actor/martial-artist/director.
 |
| Courtesy: Arrow Video |
The last act was a blast, and I had such a great time with it that it very nearly saved the film for me, but the first hour of the movie I honestly found to be a bit of a slog: a comedy that isn't all that funny, with a story so full of tangents that it literally loses the plot, and with not quite enough action to offset the goofiness. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's bad, but it's very just-okay, and definitely one of Hung's more middling efforts that I've seen. It's worth a look if you're a fan of Sammo Hung, or Hong Kong action-comedies in general, mainly for how it comes together in the end, but I'm not sure it was good enough to warrant a special edition this nice.
When it comes to the disc itself, Arrow once again knocked it out of the park. Across two discs the set features no less than four cuts of the film: the Hong Kong theatrical cut, the international cut which features some additional scenes but loses others, the US cut which is shorter and dubbed, and a new hybrid cut which combines the Hong Kong and international versions into one complete version with all footage. The 2k restoration of the film (in all versions) provided by Fortune Star is beautiful, and fans will be very pleased at how great it looks. The set features multiple commentaries across the multiple versions, by members of the production and by critics and film scholars, and it features several very good archival interviews with Sammo Hung and co-stars Yuen Biao, Cynthia Rothrock, and Yukari Oshima. It's everything we have come to expect from an Arrow Video special edition, and if you love this film, you should be over the moon with the job they did for this set. For me this is one of those strange cases where I think the stellar special edition is better than the actual film itself, but I will always be happy to see Arrow knock it out of the park. And I definitely will always be happy to see them show more love to Hong Kong films that have struggled to get good distribution in America. Now if they could show similar love and care to Sammo Hung's The Moon Warriors and Mr. Nice Guy, that would be great.
Score for the film:
Score for the Arrow Video special edition:
- Christoper S. Jordan
Share this review!