|
Cast:
Shannon
Lee
Michael
Wong
Jordan
Chan
Anita
Yuen
Benny
Urquidez
Action:
Yuen
Tak
Yuen
Kwai
Producer:
Leonard
K.C. Ho
Director:
Yuen
Kwai
Score:
 
|
ENTER
THE EAGLES
AKA:
And Now You're Dead
Year:
1998 Reviewer: Tony
Ryan
This
film caused a little controversy amongst some Hong Kong
critics on its initial release a few years back as people felt
(rightly or wrongly) that Shannon was only there as a result
of her father's legacy and that she was not a real Kung-fu
player. In my opinion, their views were a little hypocritical
as previous battling babes Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Khan had
no formal training either and were only picked for their
looks, yet look fantastic when choreographed properly. Shannon
gave me a real shock when I saw her first fight sequence in
this film, as she too looked amazing! There were few instances
of doubling and she really moved and hit like it wasn’t her
first HK movie.
The
film itself is no great shakes, especially as it is mostly in
English and suffers from the same laughable school of acting
as the similarly shot 'Who
Am I?' with the Western actors just as toe-curlingly bad!
However, it is certainly action packed, with some quality
martial arts, gunfights and explosions to keep the
action-lovers happy. It is also good to see Benny Urquidez in
another HK flick, and he can still pack a mean punch,
seemingly having aged almost as well as his most famous
opponent Jackie. I for one would like to see him in more
films.
In
essence, this is an excellent action flick in the vein of Yuen
Kwai's 80's actioners such as 'Yes,
Madam' and 'Righting
Wrongs' and is certainly a class above more recent efforts
from the HK action circuit. I would give it 5 stars but for
those annoying conversations where one person speaks Chinese
and the other responds in English!
|
