Jui gaai chaak paak dong

OUTLAW BROTHERS (UK) had all the ingredients to be a top-notch contemporary Hong Kong action fest. Frankie Chan, Yukari Oshima, a gaggle of "gwei-loh" thugs led by Hung Gar exponent Mark Houghton. It even has the incredible Michiko Nishiwaki, though she's completely wasted here. So what went wrong?

The chief liability is the script. Though it finds room for the required 6.5 kung fu fights and a couple of so-so gun battles, the characters are unfocused. I could see Chow Yun Fat as the car thief romancing police-woman Yukari Oshima (you'd think she would have gotten her teeth fixed, wouldn't you?), but somehow Frankie Chan just doesn't have the charm to be convincing.

It's a real shame because Chan is a major talent, who just seems to make unfortunate choices. He's never really reached the 1982 pinnacle of PRODIGAL SON, under Sammo Hung's direction.

If you want to see Michiko Nishiwaki in a better showcase, try MY LUCKY STARS, where she has a (brief) bout with Sammo Hung, or MAGIC COP where she's really impressive as a weird witch.

Yukari Oshima comes out of this with the most credibility. Her martial arts skills are extraordinary, though I'm not mad on that 1990s "one-style-fits-all" generic martial arts that every choreographer seemed to use at the time. How much more interesting would it have been if some of these characters used real kung fu?

If it shows up on TV, fine, but I wouldn't go out and buy this on DVD ...