HCF Review - Momotaro

MAGIC OF SPELL (1988)

Following on from The Haunted Cop Shop it’s time to turn things up a notch and get into something truly bonkers. Forget about ghosts and bloodsuckers, forget about dreamscapes, and the modern times; this is ancient Japan… by way of Taiwanese cinema. Which means this is one of the greatest sub-genres; fantasy Buddhism where the power of Bodhisattva is less about enlightenment and more about laser beams. Of course there is some connecting tissue with this as a collection of supernatural comedies. There are still plenty of slapstick moments, and crazy shenanigans along the way, so again how much of this holds up in terms of a coherent movie overall will need examination.

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HCF Review - Precinct 13

THE HAUNTED COP SHOP (1987)

Time for some more antics in the next part of this collection. Much like the first instalment in the box set, Scared Stiff, this is a story that feels like half a dozen ideas thrown together. Surely with the boiler-plate structure of a buddy cop film this will be more cohesive? In essence it’s just about two bumbling officers trying to prove the existence of the supernatural; to avoid angering their superiors after a man in custody vanishes. The main plot about the police station being built on an old nightclub used by Japanese soldiers decades earlier is also a strong hook. However, not everything here is as straightforward as it sounds.

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HCF Review - Dreamscape

SCARED STIFF (1987)

Many fans of Hong Kong cinema will know the sinking feeling of watching a genre movie turn into a slapstick farce. The credits might have big names like Sammo Hung and Lau Kar-Wing at the top in the role of producer and director respectively, along with the classic Golden Harvest logo, but this can always be a bait and switch. An action movie may only be twenty minutes of actual kung-fu with the rest of the story being about a bunch of losers trying to peep at women getting undressed. However, while there is some of that nonsense included here the rest of the film isn’t so easily described. In fact it comes across as three or four genres in one.

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Review Roundup - Squirm

RESIDENT EVIL (2026)

Like their video game namesake the Resident Evil movie series has been through a lot of rough patches. But unlike the original Capcom franchise, which went downhill after entering an action heavy phase, the films derived from it started bad and only got worse. Some viewers were sated by what was essentially a jumble of post-The Matrix action, 3D effects, and key jangling references, which meant that plenty of money was made despite the lack of internal logic and quality control. Subsequent attempts to revive the name for streaming didn't fare any better despite the games themselves making a course correction. Is this new iteration more of the same?

HCF Review - Blood Brothers

A BETTER TOMORROW (1986)

John Woo’s first foray into ‘heroic bloodshed’, might be considered low-key in comparison to his later, more pyrotechnical, films. But the movie has something; a certain immediacy, an undeniable cool factor that’s obvious right away. Releasing in an explosion of new ideas, months after both Police Story and Yes Madam, there’s just a kind of magic about it thanks to a combination of wardrobe choices, editing, and music. While the (highly entertaining) sequel is an outrageous affair with a gigantic body count and a verbal tirade about a plate of rice, the first chapter is less about spectacle and melodrama. So let’s go back the original classic; it’s A Better Tomorrow. 

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