Tiger On The Beat

Tiger On The Beat (Lo Foo chut gang) Directed By Lau Kar Leung (or Chia-Liang Liu) starring Chow Yun-Fat (1988).

This one opens with a white-hot rockin theme song by Maria Cordero and I almost get the impression that this was Chow Yun-Fat's departure from his usual "nice guy" gunslinger routine. He made this a few years after A Better Tomorrow 2 and perhaps wanted to cut loose. Leung who's a stunt co-ordinator and director has made some of the most renowned kung fu flicks like Dirty Ho and Mad Monkey Kung-Fu.
   Chow's character immediately comes off like a sleazy cop, caught in bed with a married broad (who's beastly husband is Blue Jeans Monster actor; Fui-On Shing in a short cameo ).

try this gun, it's made of delicious chocolate

   Sgt. Francis Li (Chow) wears a visor and a Hawaiian shirt, and his wacky hijinks come off like a "HK Ace Ventura". He downs a real glass full of raw eggs and surprisingly doesn't upchuck all over the place "lard-ass hogan style" of Stand By Me. There's a hold-up at a fast-food restaurant that scares Li enough to literally piss his pants! The overly crude sense of humor was a welcome sight for me, after suffering through some stogy Hong Kong flicks. There are some ridiculously voiced white gangsters that raise the ludicrous bar pretty high. This is the most animated and wacky I've ever seen the normally serious Yun-Fat. His Uncle Jim, who's also a lieutenant pairs him up with a Jackie Chan looking fellow named Michael Cho (played by Conan Lee, who was in Lethal Weapon 4 and Gymkata). There's also a commissioner Butt character, HA!

Yeah until he slits his prants!

   The subtitles are a little off, (one guy is called a schoolbag, instead of a scumbag)! Secret drug deals seem to be happening everywhere as they follow a Thai girl at the mall, her brother is another gangster on their list of suspects.

   Tiger is often like a HK counterpart to a certain series of Steve Guttenberg/Bobcat Goldthwait films (the name escapes me)!

   The fight choreography is excellent and certain kicks and punches look real and painful.  

The most random part is when "Poison Snake Ping" the Thai gangster (Norman Chu) always answers the phone, or the door in a falsetto girl voice (to fool people into thinking he's his own sister). His eventual death is pretty gruesome as a rival crew blow his hand off with dynamite, then shoot him in the back 40 times in a row.

I promise I'll never answer the phone in a fake lady voice again!

   Chow and his partner have no problem with kicking the shit out of Ping's sister (or smashing her face through a table). The last thirty minutes get pretty ugly, even though they still try to preserve the wacky hijinks, it's a very uneven balance.

Funny?

   I mean what if all of a sudden you're watching The Naked Gun and toward the end, Frank Drebin turns into Harvey Kietel in Bad Leutenant, acting like a drooling misogynist and masturbating behind a car door, you'd be flabbergasted right? I admire this creative switch and it's definitely not out of place in a HK action movie, that's for sure!

Impalement makes me jolly

   There's a high speed car chase, that is exciting even for people that usually are bored by them and I tried to see if I could find a stunt double for either actors as they narrowly dodge jagged metal and neck slicing steel.  

   One of the gangster's caucasian henchmen looks like a drugged out effeminate Cory Haim and threatens to rape Chow's sister! It's very entertaining watching Chow and his partner beat the shit out of 90210 looking white dudes in Z Cavaricci's and utilizing this crazy sawed off shotgun on a rope trick.

Go back to hell were you belong 90's fashion!

   The icing on the ultra violence cake is a full throttle double chainsaw battle! I've never seen people smash saws against each other, while sparks fly and round house kicks are delivered, it's totally insane!

ESSENTIAL HK ACTION FLICK! 

WATCH HERE

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