This early Chow Yun Fat vehicle was originally released as LO FOO CHUT GANG in 1988. The film is a LETHAL WEAPON style action movie in which Chow Yun Fat teams with Conan Lee (playing the Jackie Chan role). Chow Yun Fat is Francis Lee, the experienced, arrogant cop who is a master with his guns. However, Fat does not play the role with his typical grim, avenging angel style persona. In fact, Fat demonstrates how good he can work with comedic material. His performance through out the film is rather restrained until the last act, and then look out! It’s classic badass Chow Yun Fat! Conan Lee is Michael Chao, the overzealous rookie whose extremely adept at kung-fu, and together they form quite a team. Ti Lung (A BETTER TOMORROW) makes a cameo as Brother Leung. There is some attempt at characterization in the film, which is different than most HK action films.

The two team up to solve the murder of a drug trafficker. One of the only leads in the case is the drug trafficker’s sister played by the stacked Nina Li Chi. She is wanted by the same gang that killed her brother, so she is fearing for her life. During one particularly brutal scene, Chow Yun Fat, in an attempt to get her to cooperate with the police investigation, humiliates and then puts her through a glass table. It’s for her own good, but it’s rare you see a good guy cop beat up a slobbering woman in a movie. Later in the film she and Chow Yun Fat fall for each other (only in the movies can you beat a woman and then get a date; don't try this at home!).

There is quite a bit of stuntwork from the leads and the villains. The stunt scenes are well executed and edited. In the film’s finale, Conan Lee and his gang member opponent perform a kung-fu duel with chainsaws. Of course this is vintage Chow Yun Fat; he’s constantly armed, shooting around corners, out windows, and avoiding countless rounds of ammunition. His performance is worth the price of a rental alone.

There’s a lot of action and violence in the film:

• Conan Lee shoots a fleeing crook in the leg.
• The lead bad guy shoots a drug trafficker at point blank range.
• Ti Lung has a brief fight with Conan Lee.
• A taxi cab driver shoots a woman.
• A man gets skewered on a chainsaw.
• Chow Yun Fat uses a bayonet to slit the throat of his opponent.
• Conan Lee jumps onto a fleeing criminal’s car and misses it!
• A woman slices Chow Yun Fat’s stomach open with a piece of glass.
• The police force bloodily blows away a swarm of armed drug dealers.
• The crooks tape a stick of dynamite to a guy’s hand and watch it explode.

Despite the violence and unpleasantness, there is an abundance of humor in the film. Even though Chow Yun Fat and Conan Lee make a great combination of muscle power and firepower, the humor comes from their wise veteran/rookie cop relationship. In the scene where they first meet, Conan Lee is working undercover with some thugs in order to bust them, until they make the mistake of interrupting Chow Yun Fat’s lunch while at a food pavilion. One of the thugs takes Fat hostage and puts a gun in Fat’s mouth and Fat (not the bad guy) pees himself. Back at the police station Fat becomes the laughing stock of his dept.!

In another scene, a naked thug holds two girls hostages in a busy downtown daylight raid. He demands the Chow and Conan give him their clothes or he will shoot the girls. Chow and Conan begin arguing over who is going to strip down in front of everyone. Their associates at the police station never let them live that down during the rest of the movie!

SIGHT

The widescreen 1:85:0 cinematography comes through clear but there are some signs of softness in the image. This transfer does not look as polished as recent HK films like HARD BOILED. The colors are genuinely bright and appear accurate. Contrast and brightness are good with decent shadow detail. A few of the night action scenes appeared a little soft, possibly due to poor lighting during filming. But for a foreign film from the mid eighties, its not going to get any better than this. Not perfect, but adequate. The English subs appear beneath the letterboxed image and are easy to read.

SOUND

The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is not the best I’ve heard, but considering the age of the film it is well done. The mix is fairly active and particularly lively during the final fight scenes. Frequency response is good, though the bass is somewhat low. The Cantonese and Mandarin dialogue sounds natural and is limited to the center channel.

FEATURES

There are several trailers for Chow Yun Fat’s films. First there is a long trailer for TIGER ON BEAT (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1) totaling 4 minutes 35 seconds. Then CITY ON FIRE (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1) runs in at 3 minutes 12 seconds. The ALL ABOUT AH LONG trailer (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1) is 4 minutes 24 seconds. PRISON ON FIRE (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1) is another long one totaling 5 minutes even. PRISON ON FIRE 2 (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1) is the shortest at 2 minutes 26 seconds. HONK KONG 1941 (stereo, letterboxed at 1.85.1), Chow Yun Fat’s most acclaimed film clocks in at 3 minutes 35 seconds.

CONCLUSION

An ambitious Chinese film showcasing a different side of Chow Yun Fat, and the martial arts work of Conan Lee. The film successfully combines action, humor, amazing stuntwork, but can also be serious in depicting gangland crime. A good DVD mastering job by Tai Seng. I believe that if this movie had an English dub on it, it could be easily accessible to the American demographic.

TIGER ON BEAT is available from DVDEmpire.com

                                        Rating (out of 5):