I am currently writing some self indulgently long essays on one of my favourite films – Tai chi Master. But I’m not ready to post them yet. So I thought that I would fill in time by reposting some mini reviews I wrote a while back for another blog I had going somewhere else.

Island of Fire (Golden Harvest) (1990) directed by Ying-Ping Chu and starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau, Tony Leung and Wang Yu. This was in the martial arts section at my local video store but it didn’t have much actual martial arts in it. Instead it was a prison drama with blokes bonding through lots of beatings and torture.

  • I like Sammo Hung and I felt for his character but I do wish he hadn’t kicked the dog.
  • I like Jackie Chan and I felt for his character but I didn’t like the way he made his girlfriend take off her high heels so that she wasn’t taller than him.
  • The award for the most contrived and pointless ‘staring at girly’s boobies’ scene I have ever seen is in this movie.
  • I don’t like the guy in the beanie and I didn’t feel for his character and I do wish he hadn’t killed that man’s pet mouse and stuck it in his dinner.

Grim macho films like this are not to my taste but I felt that a redeeming feature was the excellent acting of the cast. There is an interesting twist to the plot at the end.

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