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BEYOND
THE LAW
AKA:
City Cops
Year:
1989 Reviewer: Tony
Ryan
This
is another police thriller with Cynthia Rothrock in her last
Hong Kong movie before returning home to film the 'China
O'Brien' films and is in the same vein as 'Yes,
Madam' and 'Inspector
Wears Skirts' only not as good as either. This time
Rothrock is an FBI agent sent from the US to Hong Kong to
bring back an informer and rescue his sister.
Yuen
Kwai and Sammo Hung have directed similar films with a far
more assured eye. Unfortunately, Lau Kar Wing has tried to
inject too much bad comedy between half-decent fight scenes
without making the best of fighters such as Cindy and Mark
Houghton. The final fight in a warehouse features fan
favourite Michiko Nishiwaki and is quite well done, but we are
not shown anything new in terms of choreography.
At
the time this film was made the femme fatale style of films
was becoming less popular as every avenue in the genre had
already been done successfully. As a result, the audience was
looking for more substance and far better direction than was
on show here, and will only have been watched on the promise
of good action, which here was ultimately mediocre.
All
in all, this film has little to recommend it unless you are a
big Cynthia Rothrock fan. It has tried to create a kind of 'Winners
& Sinners' and 'Yes, Madam' hybrid while films like 'Outlaw
Brothers', 'Righting
Wrongs' and 'Inspector Wears
Skirts' deliver far more.
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