AaronKenMcGuire

Hey, this film is directed by Chu Yen-Ping and presented by Cinema City Films. You know what that means. You're in for a lame comedy that's more trying than funny, but is still incredibly entertaining and has a catchy theme song. A Book of Heroes is no exception. It may have a clever joke on occasion, but overall isn't generally funny. Most actors do a good job, but Woo Gwa and Laam Sam-Mei have standout performances.

Though the comedy doesn't amaze, the fight scenes do. Woo Gwa and Laam Sam-Mei are great and definitely had potential. It's a shame their film careers were relatively short. There's also Japanese actors Kurata Yasuaki and Yukari Oshima (in her film debut) who are quite impressive, but not as impressive as their future contributions to cinema. If only the writing was as good as the fight scenes. Also I heard that one of the main reasons why people like this movie is because of it's pretty female leads who beat people up, but if that's all you want, then Inspector Wears Skirts is more for you.

This movie is strange, but it's not "Chu Yen-Ping" strange. There aren't any Chinese Scotsmen or kung fu bowling, like what you may see in his other movies. It's just a silly movie. This movie is a hidden gem in Hong Kong cinema, but it is a dirt-covered gem. Like most-all Chu Yen- Ping films, the comedy is lame and the action is terrific, but my rating will easily rise once I watch a half decent print of this film. With that said, the movie is still entertaining and a movie to watch if you have nothing else to do. By the way, if you can't stand jump-cuts, this film is not for you.

Fantasy Mission Force is a unique film directed by Chu Yen-Ping. Debates on if his movies are "good" continue. There seem to be three reasons why people may dislike this movie: (1) Jackie Chan is barely in it. (2) The DVD releases are terrible. (3) They don't realize that this movie knows what it's doing (This sentence will make more sense later on).

People may be disappointed that the movie that they spent $2 on barely has the actor that they wanted to see: Jackie Chan. The reason for Jackie Chan being on the covers of literally every single DVD of this movie is because of marketing. Besides, how else are they going to attract people to these terrible DVD releases? Usually the DVD releases for this movie are full screen, English dubbed, and VHS quality. This plays a big factor in the "crappy- ness" of this film. I would imagine that if this movie had been widescreen, re-mastered, and in it's original language, this movie could've been enjoyed more. The Malaysian DVD and the German DVD seem to be liked more. I also look forward to the day that this movie gets released on Blu-ray. Don't worry, it's coming.

In my opinion, this is a movie that knows what it's doing. Let me explain. This movie knows that it's bad and decides to take advantage of what they can get away with. So what if this movie isn't historically accurate? This is a movie that's so ridiculous that saying if it's good or bad doesn't matter. The question you should be asking yourself shouldn't be is this movie good or bad, but instead you should be asking yourself is this movie entertaining. Well, it IS entertaining.

Simple pleasures come from this movie. I do realize that some of the jokes are esoteric to most audiences (even esoteric to Chinese audiences), but the movie is still entertaining. Seeing where some of these actors went after this movie can be fun. The actor who played Old Sun became an actor in City on Fire. The actress who played Lily was later in Police Story with Jackie Chan. Speaking of which, isn't it incredible that Jackie Chan didn't let this movie ruin his career?

As much as it seems like I'm praising this movie, it's still ridiculous and nonsensical for most audiences so I do understand where the tremendous amount of hate towards this movie comes from. But what I'm trying to say is that the people who hate this movie are taking it too seriously. I don't know how to rate this movie; I'm kind of split, but I think we can all agree that this movie desperately needs to have a Blu-ray release. It'll happen someday. I promise...

I saw a fight scene from this movie and wanted to watch it, but before I did, I read reviews saying that the fight scenes are one of the only good things about this movie. I thought that was ridiculous and watched the movie only to realize that they were right.

There are two main reasons why I gave this movie a 6 out of 10. (1) The action sequences are fantastic and (2) I like the song that play during the end credits. Both things are not enough to save this movie. If you have see this movie, you cannot say that the fight scenes are stunts are not spectacular. Though wires are used, the stunts are still impressive and presumably painful. This movie probably has some of the most creative fight scenes from 80's HK cinema.

I wouldn't say this movie is in any way awful, but this movie could've been better. If you want to see Mars star in a movie or if you want to see Carina Lau's film debut, then this movie can be recommended. If you don't, then you might as well just fast-forward to the fight scenes (or just find them on YouTube somewhere). It's kind of strange, but there are very few people who actually consider this movie "high-quality entertainment" and you might be one of them (but I highly doubt that you are).