Rating: 
Summary: One of Chow's Best!
Review: I've had a quality bootleg VHS copy of this film for years, but picked up this DVD on the cheap to compare it to the original Golden Princess release. In some ways its better (more squibs, better subtitles, more dialogue and scenes) and in some ways it's worse (characters names have been changed, much of the rocking HK soundtrack missing). Inexplicably Jeff's name has been changed to Godfrey. Godfrey! What kind of name is that for a tough guy? Virgin's name has been changed to Yin and the big muscular villian is now Madman. I believe originally it was Deano or something like that but don't quote me on it as I haven't watched the original version in a while. The great guitar work is missing from both the Bangkok car chase and the final nightclub shootout, but most of the other music remains intact, notably as Chow recuperates and trains in Bangkok and when Mona is dancing at the nightclub. This DVD has english and chinese language dialog and widescreen and full screen picture. Buy it man, it kicks a$$!
Rating:
Summary: Hard Core HK Action
Review: If you love Honk Kong Cinema or Chow Yun Fat, you'll probably like this movie, although I thought it was the worst CYF flick I've seen. Don't buy this movie if you are just getting into HK action, you'd be better off with 'A Better Tomorrow' or 'The Killer'. This movie is basically a low budget action film with bad acting (except CYF) and a pretty corny plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardcore HK/CYF fans only!
Review: If you love Honk Kong Cinema or Chow Yun Fat, you'll probably like this movie, although I thought it was the worst CYF flick I've seen. Don't buy this movie if you are just getting into HK action, you'd be better off with 'A Better Tomorrow' or 'The Killer'. This movie is basically a low budget action film with bad acting (except CYF) and a pretty corny plot.
Rating:
Summary: Full Contact
Review: Please, oh PLEASE, don't confuse this outragously wonderful movie with the U.S. garbage of the same name! This could quite possibly contend for the title of Chow Yun-Fat's best role (alongside his characters in "The Killer" and "Hardboiled"). The soundtrack in this movie will also blow you away, going from Cantorock to Yankeerock to Thai pop to a little blues guitar. Great stuff!
Rating:
Summary: Gritty!!! Violent!!! Brutal!!! Great!!!
Review: Plot Outline: After Sam (Anthony Wong) gets in trouble with some triads over a gambling debt, his best friend Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat) has to bail him out. Sam gets word that his cousin Judge (Simon Yam) wants him and his friends to help them pull a job robbing a truck. Once on the job Jeff finds out it was all a trick set up by the triads to kill him. In a turn of betrayal, Sam is forced by his cousin to shoot Jeff. They leave Jeff to die in a burning building, only Jeff makes it out alive. Now he looks for revenge. The Review: Full Contact is easily the sleaziest, grittiest and downright most vulgar HK action film I've ever seen. Now that I've said that, it's also just one outright cool film. Taking what could have been just an average tale of revenge, Ringo Lam injected the film with the style of the 80's and a healthy dose of brutal violence. The film represents all that was great of the all but dead Heroic Bloodshed genre. It's still around, but you don't see too many films like Full Contact anymore. Don't misunderstand me, the violence in Full Contact, while plentiful, doesn't quite top the likes of A Better Tomorrow II, but the film is just a whole lot seedier. The violence in John Woo's films are usually comical to some point, but here the violence takes place somewhat in reality. The gunplay is actually fairly minimal really. There's only a couple of gunfights, and excluding the first person bullet effects, they aren't really all that spectacular. The violence in the film is just accentuated by the feel of the film. In one of the more brutal scenes in the film, Anthony Wong's character shoots a man in the head about seven times, covering the guy in blood. It's just an ugly image, and made uglier by the scenery and characters. It takes place in a dingy warehouse and watching his blood splatter all over his hands can almost make you feel uncomfortable. When I first sat down to watch Full Contact I didn't know much about it and wasn't expecting much. I had read on a message board somewhere in the past that it was supposed to be a great non-Woo HK action film so I decided to give it a chance. Within the first five minutes of watching the film, it makes it's case strongly, and lets you know exactly what kind of film it's going to be. Simon Yam's gang robs what appears to be a jewelry store, in the process he stabs a innocent woman through the chest then proceeds to have her open the vault. We're introduced to the rest of his gang too. Mona, the promiscuous and Deano the muscular freak (played by Frankie Chin, best known as the guy who tries to strangle Ricky in Ricky-Oh). The introduction is so simple, but it's just so perfect. It's hard to put my hand on it, it's just the perfect way to start the film. A kick to the gut for the audience. If one thing bothered me most about the film the first time I watched it, it was surprisingly enough Chow himself. Not that he gives a bad performance or anything like that, it's just his clothing style is just terrible. He wears a short sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Add to that a crew cut and a leather vest over the shirt, and you've got one goofy looking chow. The second time I sat through it I just took it in as part of the cheesyness of the film. The roaring electric guitar solos, the clothes... it's all so classic 80's. The style, the violence, and the characters are what makes the film. Simon Yam is repulsive in his role as a flamboyantly gay sociopath who let's nothing stand in his way. Chow puts in a great effort, but it doesn't really take much from Chow to please. He could be playing a coma patient and would still ooze 'cool' from his pours. When I first watched the film I wasn't familiar with Anthony Wong, so I didn't actually ever notice him, but now that I've seen Beast Cops I was surprised to find out that it was he who played Sam. He's gained a whole lot of weight over the years, but I think he's actually more suited with the weight on. In this film, when his character becomes a tough guy it's kind of hard to take serious, but with some weight on him Wong comes off a bit more intimidating. As far as acting goes, those are the central characters. Everyone else puts in decent enough performances even though the girls just seem to be there for eye candy. Nice eye candy, but eye candy just the same. To wrap things up, Full Contact stands out as one of the best Heroic Bloodshed films made not by John Woo. That actually sounds a little harsh, I don't compare the film to Woo's work, but it's just unavoidable. Anyway, I've debated with myself whether to give it a four or a five for a while now, and I've come to the conclusion that it's getting the Stubbing Award. Sure, it doesn't add a whole lot more to the genre, but it delivers what is one of the funnest rides the genre has ever produced. Full Contact is a classic, not to be missed by HK film fans, or gritty gangster film fans for that matter.
Rating: 
Summary: Highpowered HK Actioneer
Review: Ringo Lam directs the indomitable Chow Yun Fat and a scene stealing Simon Yam in this, one of the best of the Heroic Bloodshed flicks. Jeff (Chow) is a gritty Harley riding bouncer one step from the gutter who gets involved with a super cool and downright bloodthirsty badguy called Judge (played by Yam). Judge's hobbies are causing utter mayhem and a little bit of legerdemaine with a knife or a pistol. Jeff is doublecrossed by Yam's cousin, his own best friend (Anthony Wong - main bad guy from Hard Boiled). Losing some fingers in the process, Jeff manages to crawl out of a flaming building and enters into a supercharged Rocky-esque recuperation montage, learning to shoot with his left hand and pumping iron until he is ready to return and give due payback to his ex-friend (who has in the interim hooked up with Jeff's girlfriend in true weasel fashion), Judge, and his two disgusting psycho cronies. Chow is really in top-form here, and the story, if not the most original, is a level better than most simplisitic HK fare. The soundtrack is great, the imagery is visceral (Chow knifes two baddies and lets the water dripping from a leaky pipe wash the blood off his blade) and unique (check the bullet-cam in the disco scene near the end). Yam gives a star performance -he is slick, charming and totally over the top (I'm told in the original version he sucks the retinas from a pair of eyeballs -this is cut from the American release). A kicking flick for fans of the genre, though a little intense for those unused to the HK style (a better introduction would be The Killer).
Rating:
Summary: BULLETS AND BROKEN HEARTS
Review: Ringo Lam-directed Chow Yun Fat is almost always tragic. And while this pumped-up and bravado-engorged 1992 spectacular plays like some vividly tricked-up Walter Hill movie, all hallucinatory candypop flash and giddy set pieces, it is no less heartbroken. Chow Yun Fat is Jeffrey, a butterfly-kinfe-brandishing Hong Kong gangsta babysitting troubleprone geek pal Sam, played by the always amazing Anthony Wong (forthcoming in Tsui Hark's "Time and Tide") on the mean streets of Bangkok. Sam trigger-fingers him during a treacherous hijacking and leaves him to the worms, all under the suave manipulation of queer gangster Wizard, played to an icy, reptilian perfection by Simon Yam ("Expect the Unexpected"). But. Like Lee Marvin in "Point Blank", Jeffrey survives the blundered assassination , repairs himself and treks back to Hong Kong for a cold-blooded round of vendetta. Waiving Lam's usual primal dynamism, this is a different beguilement. There is not only a gorgeous ferocity to the glam-sleaze trappings but also a jaw-dropping urgency to the spasms of action, from the two-man siege in an ice plant to the final face-off between Jeffrey and Wizard ,but best being the now-classic disco gunbattle from, seen mostly from the POV of the bullets, which is where everyone from Kevin Reynolds("Prince of Thieves")to Oliver Stone ("Naturalborn Killers")to the Wachowski Brothers (you know, that movie with the guy from "Bill & Ted") to Lam himself (in his dire cred-busting Van Damme outing "Maximum Risk") , stole from. Still. "Full Contact" only feels like some slick, megabudget tribute to macho swagger. Murky codes of honour, the fragility of firendships and the frantic pursuit of identity remain Lam's priority obsessions. But the visceral supercharge that vibrates throughout the movie is so adrenalizing, it's hard not to feel triumphant, specially when Jeffrey, dreams dashed and one hand shattered to pieces, sends Wizard off to his doom with a knife in the gullet and the killer of killer lines: "Masturbate In Hell!"
Rating:
Summary: BRILLIANT..SUPERB
Review: This is a Excellent FIlm. If you Like guns and violence Watch This. Violent and Betrayal. Chow Yun Fat is Brilliant. He is the Pacino/De Niro of Hong Kong Cinema.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Core HK Action
Review: This is a hard core action film that keeps you on the toes. It potrays friendship and betrayal. Here we get to see the magic of Chow Yun Fat in action. His charactor Jeff is no Mr. Debonair-Distinguished-Gentleman but a gangster with a mission. Determined to payback the betrayal dished out to him in a robbery gone awry Jeff goes up against an equally dangerous gangster who happens to be gay and attracted to him. This is where the comedy comes in and Simon Yam does a good job of portraying the gay gangster. This is a must have for fans of Chow Yun Fat and Hong Kong cinema.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Hong Kong films ever...
Review: This is Hong Kong film making at its very best. Full Contactstars Chow Yun Fat as Joe, a professional thief and criminal (but acriminal with a moral code and sense of honour). This is essentially a remake of the 1967 crime caper "Point Blank", which starred Lee Marvin. However it is done in the brutal, gun-blazing style for which Hong Kong has become renowned. unlike practically every other Hong Kong film I've ever seen, the emotional aspects of the film (betrayal, loss of girlfriend etc) are handled with a sense of understatement and subtlety, which makes them a very important component of Joe's attitude and as such the story itself. Additionally, the music instead of being the typical "Canto-pop" of most Hong Kong films, is instead early 90s techno and house. This film also introduced the bullet-cam that was extensively used in other films, most noticably Woo's "Hard Target". Ringo Lam direction has always been exciting and powerful, and it has never been better than it is here.
|
