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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HCF Review - Jigoku

BOHACHI BUSHIDO: CODE OF THE FORGOTTEN EIGHT (1973)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; an enigmatic warrior arrives in a strange town and is enlisted by a nefarious local outfit to do the dirty work of a scheming villain… but his personal ideals interfere with the business at hand. The world of Samurai movies (and indeed Westerns) offers plenty of examples of this story. Which means a fresh take requires a certain kind of flair, or interesting take on the formula, to make it memorable. In this particular case Teruo Ishii’s vision is to take the material from an adult manga (from the writers of Lone Wolf and Cub) and fill much of the film’s running time with nudity and torture. Are the results a case of style (and sadism) over substance? 

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