646f9e108c Fighting against pirates in "old Hong Kong". Chinese costume drama with plenty of over-the-top tongue in cheek action and music. In late 19th Century Hong Kong the British may rule the land, but the pirates rule the waters. Reluctantly, the Coast Guard is given money to fight these pirates, but the pirates themselves have many contacts (that is, bribed officials) in the government, and seek to thwart the Coast Guard's efforts to eliminate them. One Coast Guard officer is Dragon Ma, who is determined that his beloved Coast Guard will not be made fools of. I had heard that this was the best movie with the "Three Brothers" (Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, and Sammo Hung), so I was looking forward to seeing it. There were some great stunts, especially the bicycle chase sequence, but all in all I was disappointed. Somehow the manic energy seemed to be missing from the fight scenes... they were plenty energetic, but they sort of lacked the cleverness we expect from the Three Brothers. The plot was also especially poor, not in that it wasn't enthralling (it wasn't and it's not expected to be), but that it got in the way of understanding the movie. In retrospect, it's possible that what I thought was one character was actually two, which is not a good sign for the clarity of the plot. It's also often difficult to figure out why a character is doing a certain thing, like betraying someone with apparently no motive. The plot isn't even expected to be easy to follow, but in this case it was nearly impossible to follow, which is bad. Overall, worth seeing eventually if you like the Three Brothers, but I would rate Wheels on Meals much higher. This is a mad, mad movie. It contains stunts that would be an insurance nightmare to complete in Hollywood. But here, Jackie Chan drops off a clock tower and then does it again, and again! Just to get the shot.<br/><br/>Great stunts, great martial arts, some cheesy humour, but generally a knockout of a film. Like so many other HK movies, this classic from the glory days of the trio Jackie Chan / Sammo Hung / Yuen Biao is cut and got a new score in the US. The approx. 8 minutes shorter version mainly lacks ridiculous comedy scenes. The abduction of Samo Hung is missing as well because Mahjong is not necessarily reasonable for a Western audience.<br/><br/>There are also differences between the regular and the Japanese version.
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