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The Iceman Cometh

The Iceman Cometh

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Product Info Reviews

Features:
  • Color
  • AC-3
  • Widescreen
  • Dolby


Description:

A French movie magazine described this 1989 action fantasy as "Un remake idiot de 'Highlander.'" If only. It's actually one of those rock-bottom Hong Kong films in which the only good sequences are the fights--so good, in fact, that they betray the contribution of a ghost director, most likely Sammo Hung. This surmise is supported by the fact that Yuen Biao and his giggling nemesis from Hung's Eastern Condors, Yuen Hwa, get to restage their final-reel showdown from that film, which is duplicated right down to the camera angles. The two Yuens play antagonists in Ming Dynasty China who are accidentally frozen in a glacier and get thawed out to continue their conflict in modern Kowloon. There are a couple of clever bits, like an interlude in which the bad guy zones out over a Walkman and a bank of TVs showing American programs. But way too much of the action is frantic lame comedy, as Yuen is taken in hand by hooker Emily Chu and still has a tough time making the adjustment to urban life. At one point he happily slurps up a drink of water from a handy toilet bowl--an emblematic image. --David Chute
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