Hong Kong 97

We watched one of those rare movies the other night that was so bad, it actually was good.

Improbability piled on top of unlikelihood layered over with banality and stupefying inconsequence.

Other than that, it was quite good.

The first "humping scene" was one minute and ten seconds in. (We have a little pool every time we watch a movie. Usually if you choose any time within the first twenty minutes, you have a chance.) Why stick with it, why not scrap the tape and use it to record Debbie Travis.

Because this movie boggled the mind. Just when you said "it can't get any worse" it did.

But the definitively awful thing about it was the amount of gunplay.

Hi…I don't like your necktie…take that…blam blam.

In one memorable scene, the leading man ---HEY, LOOK AT ME, I'M DOING A BAD IMPRESSION OF PIERCE BROSNAN --- naked and in bed with an equally naked lady (well, I doubt she was much of a "lady") is interrupted by three gunmen.

He rises from the bed, a gun in each hand, which he uses to dispatch the bad guys. BLAM BLAM WHANG ZING BANG Actually, if they were trying to kill this character, they would have been GOOD guys.

But we continue to agonize over our handgun problem.

The reasons for it are pretty obvious when you watch a movie like this

I rented Decoy and this flick one night as a Robert Patrick double bill. Hong Kong 97's story would seem to have potential, but nothing comes of it. Robert Patrick stars along a bunch of recognizable faces (some b-movie regulars) that have seen better days in the typical gun-for-hire on the run / can't trust anyone routine.

I still remember when Hong Kong was going to revert powers. It was almost surreal. All British assets were clearing out and the news was portraying it as the 90's version of the Berlin Wall. Of course, this movie has none of that underlying paranoia or sense of unease. It's just a bunch of cheaply filmed scenes helmed by Albert Pyun. For fans of direct-to-video action, this doesn't register a blimp on the radar and even Robert Patrick fans will have to agree Hong Kong 97 is pretty sore.

It's 1997 Hong Kong and the last days of British rule. Reginald Cameron (Robert Patrick) is a hired assassin who kills the incoming Chinese leaders of Hong Kong. He is hunted in the city and finds refuge with his ex-girlfriend Katie Chun (Ming-Na Wen). His mentor Simon Alexander (Brion James) and friend Jack McGraw (Tim Thomerson) try to unravel the murky conspiracy surrounding the kill order.

This is a poor B-movie. It's surprising to see some interesting actors. It tries to build up the exotic aspects of Hong Kong. The action is a lot of functional shoot em up but there is nothing extraordinary. The tension is never that high. I also don't find an assassin who kills a high Chinese official that believable when he's shocked at all the trouble he's in. I rather have him be a harden killer who expects all the danger.

This film is not an academy award winning film, but I am tired of people putting it down such as other films by Robert Patrick. I rented this when it first came out and I did not think much of it, along with Decoy and other Patrick films before his x-files years. Yet what I have come to realize is that these films capture a time and feeling which we just don't see anymore. B-films have become no-talent video filmed crap movies that are as bad as anything you might have seen on MST3K more then a decade ago. Looking back on these films such as Hong Kong 97 makes me wish that independent film companies still gave financial backing to these visions. Is this movie bad? No! Can it be better? Yes. Is it worth watching? Certainly!

I was only expecting something good, but the movie turned out to be bad.

All the movie's missing is I Love Beijing Tiananmen, Deng Xiaoping's head being used as an ultimate weapon, and ugly reds rushing from the mainland. The worst part is that Chin is not in this movie, and it's too bad he's busy fighting ugly reds.

I've read through every YouTube comment, and they have the same issue as I'm having right now in this movie. Even though this movie came before the game with the same name, the movie's still bad.

I know that the ugly reds and Deng Xiaoping's head were behind the making of this movie.