image courtesy of Sensasian
Rating:
6.5
Year of release: 1988
Company: Magnum
Genre: crime
Running time: 95 min.
Director: Parkman Wong
Script: James Fung
Action director: Yuen Bing
Producers: Danny Lee, Ivan Lai
Cinematography: Cho Wai Kei
Editor: Choi Hung
Music: The Melody Bank
Stars: Danny Lee, Stephen Chow, Shing Fui-On, Tommy Wong, Ken Lo
Rated IIB for violence, language and nudity
Related links:
DVD Review
Stephen Chow biography
Danny Lee biography
Movie Review index
Main Page
This DVD is available for purchase at www.sensasian.com
Final Justice
Stephen Chow. Image courtesy of Universe.
Before Stephen Chow set the Asian cinematic world on fire with his "moy len tau" comedies, he appeared in a series of dramas such as this. While Final Justice is an okay movie, there's just not much to set it apart from similar films, except for seeing Chow in a (mostly) non-comedic role. Like most Danny Lee cop movies, it's pretty much by-the-numbers stuff all the way, but still provides a decent ninety minutes' worth of entertainment.
The story has Lee as his usual hard-assed cop who catches car thief Stephen in the act; the car Stephen steals is later used in a robbery led by Shing Fui-On, and Danny tries to make Stephen co-operate so he can crack the case. As per usual, Danny's supervisor doesn't like him much and tries to stop the investigation, while Shing's gang continues to wreak havoc. Eventually Danny and Stephen team up to try and stop the gang, but it may be too late.
Danny Lee. Image courtesy of Universe.
I'm finding it a bit hard to write a decent review for this film, because like I said before, Final Justice doesn't really have much to distinguish it from the myriad of other Danny Lee flicks. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Lee's films are usually solid -- it's just that seeing the same thing over and over again gets a bit tiring after a while, and I might have reached my "burnout point" with Final Justice. It held my interest, but didn't exactly set my world on fire.
If it wasn't for the fine performances of Danny Lee and Stephen Chow (who won the Taiwanese Golden Horse for the movie, and proves that he can do good dramatic work when the role calls for it) and a couple of incidenary firefights, Final Justice would be truly just another run of the mill cop movie. However, Chow's charm and Lee's stoic facade help give the film a bit of style that carries it above similar fare. Even if you have seen this kind of movie many times before, you might want to give Final Justice a try, especially if you are interested in seeing some of Stephen Chow's dramatic work.
