Lo foo chut gang (Tiger on Beat, 1988)

Lau Kar Leung

Hong Kong

88 min, color, Cantonese (English subtitles)

A super-silly (and therefore entertaining) mismatched-cop comedy with some great action sequences, Tiger on Beat partners up Chow Yun-Fat as the womanizing, older (perhaps not much wiser) street cop Francis with Conan Lee, the muscular, ambitious, hot-headed rookie Michael. The film follows just about every cliché you can think of, from the antics of the duo to both cops learning something valuable from each other. I would be remiss to imply that there is any significance to the story apart from its rather unabashed pursuit of stupid jokes and impressive action.

Chow Yun-Fat begins in a role that is somewhat of a departure for his heroic bloodshed characters from The Killer, Hard Boiled, or A Better Tomorrow. So much is evident after the first 5 minutes into the film, during which he manages to (1) cuckold a drunken husband by having kinky sex with his bored wife, (2) escape when the husband gets home by feeding him a rather concocted story that even I could not follow very well, but which included the wife fainting because of her husband's wicked ways, (3) wear a loud Hawaian shirt, (4) drink a carton of raw eggs, (5) become a hostage, (6) wet himself in fear, and (7) faint in a pool of his own (very healthy given his diet) urine. THEN, we find out he's a cop! Of course, he gets a new partner, the same guy whose handling of the hostage crisis caused Francis to pee in his pants.

The movie then proceeds at a brisk pace to develop a "story" that can serve as bridges between the various action sequences. The duo has to crack a heroin smuggling case that involves Thai triads, gweillos, and native bosses. Everything is over the top and we are treated to several memorable scenes including a chase of a villain during which our cops are forced to part with their pants; hell, Michael even gets to moon some passers-by.

Some crude humor and implausible events later, Francis and Michael find themselves protecting Marydonna (Nina Li), the sister of a triad who's on the run from the other triads for trying to dupe them. Francis, in particular, applies some rather shocking techniques to her, which would have earned him the "L.A. Police Brutality" badge of honor. In the end, it all goes to hell when Marydonna is killed and the two cops have to trade the triad boss for Francis's sister (Shirley Ng). In the final apocalyptic fight, Francis sports an impressive shotgun, machette, and martial skills, while Michael wastes no time in engaging one of the chief henchmen (Gordon Liu) in a duel to the death with chainsaws. Naturally, the duel is to the bad guy's death. We are never told how Francis went from a pant-wetting pussy to a Rambo impersonator.

A watchable film (I rather liked it on the second try although I did not care much after the first), Tiger on Beat is a crowd-pleaser of the type that lasts less than a week's worth of cinema run. Paying less than $5 for the DVD will save you in the long run, especially if you develop sudden cravings for the chainsaw duel as I did after my upstairs neighbors woke me up at some ungodly hour this Sunday. The bare-bones Universe DVD is decent, from a scratched print, with the usual hollow remix, and few extras (talen files, trailer, and some trailers for other CYF films).

Memorable quote: "Being ugly is not illegal!" (I am sure it is in California though.)

February 24, 2003