Eastern Condors

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad movie, but it could have been better
Review: I remember seeing the TV comercials for this movie and thinking wow! Unfortunately, the movie didn't quite live up to expectations. I liked many elements of the movie: the premise (a team of Chinese convicts drops into 1976 Vietman to destroy a US weapons cache), the fight scenes. However, I hated the combat team that dropped in with Sammo Hung. These men are supposed to be hardened crimminals (like the dirty dozen), but during the movie they do nothing but cringe and whimper and act as comic relief. If one guy on the team was like that it would be okay, but to have an entire combat team made up of cowards ruins the movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Asian War Movie
Review: If looking from the war side, I'd say go and rent Bullet in the Head (a great war movie by John Woo). But if you want to see good fight scenes, this movie is for you. One of Hung's best works, includes great appearances from Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah, and Dr. Haing S. Ngor. However, I still don't understand why Joyce Godenzi was in it. I bet because she was Hung's girlfriend. Anyway, I think that the usual version is cut short because, after seeing an Asian preview, I noticed that there are supposedly more scenes in the American prison. But despite all of these negative factors, the movie is just great to watch. If you are a true fan of Asian cinema, you won't be dissapointed.

Rating:
Summary: Sammo Hung's ultimate tour de force.
Review: Sammo Hung perfects the term "non-stop action" in this ...kicking, fire fighting, tree climbing, knife wielding adventure based on "The Dirty Dozen". Sammo and Yuen Biao demonstrate what skill is all about and manage to amaze without using a wire. Jackie Chan is the man, but his two buddies from school reign supreme in this film that Jackie wishes he would have thought of first.

Rating:
Summary: Sammo Hung's ultimate tour de force.
Review: Sammo Hung perfects the term "non-stop action" in this ...kicking, fire fighting, tree climbing, knife wielding adventure based on "The Dirty Dozen". Sammo and Yuen Biao demonstrate what skill is all about and manage to amaze without using a wire. Jackie Chan is the man, but his two buddies from school reign supreme in this film that Jackie wishes he would have thought of first.

Rating:
Summary: Exellent martial arts, acting and plot.
Review: The story of a few chinese fellows that the american goverment releases from prison in order to send them to a cetain-death mission in vietnam due to mistake in retreat from there. Samo hung, Yuen biao and yuen wah give wonderfull fightscenes,in a true Hong kong matial arts\action clasic.

Rating:
Summary: Sammo did it again as usual!! *S*
Review: well, another great sammo flick!!! i think you'll love this hong kong remake of the dirty dozen, its filled with a great cast including yuen biao, yuen wah, and joyce godenzi!!! the gun battles are great and watch for the scene in the vietnam jungle when sammo and yuen biao take out a platoon of men one at a time, the last 10 minutes are classic with yuen biao facing yuen wah, and sammo facing billy chow, and then sammo facing yuen wah!! a great classic movie in its own right!!! order this one!!!! if not its your own loss!!! *L*

Rating:
Summary: HELL YA! SUPER FAST JAPANESSE FIGHTING ACTION!!!
Review: What it........Love it...............Or I will have you killed :) END OF STORY!

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Hong Kong war movie in a sparkling DVD edition
Review: While it's not flawless, this Fox DVD edition of EASTERN CONDORS is clearly the best we've ever seen of this 1987 Hong Kong action classic. Sammo Hung, the star and director, had graduated from old school kung fu films to contemporary stunt-filled action comedies with his Peking Opera classmates, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, and then a new direction (minus Jackie) with his all-star action comedy, MILLIONAIRES' EXPRESS in 1986. EASTERN CONDORS borrows liberally from THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and THE DEER HUNTER (1978), while injecting massive doses of kung fu, acrobatics, gunfire, black humor and tragedy into its tale of Asian and Asian-American military prisoners ("the Condors") sent on a dangerous mission into Vietnam in 1976, a year after the American withdrawal.

The Condors' mission in Vietnam is to find and destroy an underground cache of American weapons to keep it out of Vietnamese hands. When they get to Vietnam they hook up with a trio of female Cambodian guerrillas (led by fighting femme Joyce Godenzi) who act as guides, but have an ulterior motive of their own. The group also picks up a local Cantonese-speaking black market dealer who's expert in kung fu (Yuen Biao). Thanks to a spy in the group, the Vietnamese army follows the Condors' every move.

The nonstop action is quite cleverly staged, although some of it is a bit far-fetched. The characters and their relationships are generally quite interesting and we tend to feel sadness and grief when a member of the group dies (or is seriously wounded or maimed). Partly filmed in Canada, with outdoors action shot in the Philippines, the film offers a spectacular climax staged in an underground weapons complex designed and built to resemble the sets Ken Adam built for so many James Bond films.

The film's expert cinematography is finally given a transfer that allows us to appreciate it in widescreen with 16:9 enhancement. However, both the English-dubbed and Cantonese language tracks are slightly but noticeably out of sync. The English dub is pretty awful. The subtitles for the Cantonese track are not the original ones we saw in earlier editions of the film. They're "dub-titles," transcriptions of the English dub dialogue which is far less interesting and dramatic than accurate translations of the original dialogue. So don't discard your earlier copies.