Director: Frankie Tam, Lui Koon Nam
Year: 2021
Country: China
Alternate Titles: Wo hu gian long; Undercover vs. Undercover
Genre: Action
Plot:
After surviving a drug raid gone wrong, an undercover cop in the employ of a local dealer finds himself as the new leader of the group and has inherited all the business contacts of his former boss. Realizing that one of them is a debt to a smuggling kingpin that has taken over the trade in the area, he’s soon approached by the group who carried out the deal are from a rival’s gang of thugs looking for information on an associate of theirs that has now turned into the target he was working for. Forced to take action in order to stop a major smuggling operation about to go down, the two are forced to trust each other in order to bring the crime ring to justice and stop his plans from happening.
Review:
This was a rather entertaining genre effort. Among its better qualities is the impressive nature of keeping an intricate and involved storyline going on throughout here. This all feels like a wide variety of genre efforts with the story involving the undercover cop trying to keep the identity going throughout the multitude of alliance switches and double-crosses, the new characters that come into the picture offering their own score to settle, and the new plotlines that emerge with the group coming to realize they’re now trying to accomplish the same thing which requires them teaming up to do so. It’s all rather formulaic but simply comes off as a necessary plot device to string together the action scenes throughout here which is the main point.
That is the other effective aspect here where its scenes are quite enjoyable and frenetic. With the opening ambush on the drug-swap taking place at the junkyard, this one generates a highly impressive starting point with the sides coming together to fight off the intruding agents in a flurry of martial arts and fire-fights that look rather impressive overall. In other impressive scenes, from the battle at the drug lab and the escape out onto the streets, there’s a nice flashy choreography on display that gives this some enjoyable enough martial arts skills from the performers o balance out the gunplay coming in the finale where it goes on to feature the big confrontation on the ship. While not flashy or over the top, there’s a lot to like here that holds this one up over its few flaws.
There are a couple of factors holding this one back. One of the main issues is the seemingly convoluted and scattered storyline that brings together way too many storylines that don't need to be involved. This one manages to keep them straight for the most part but it still comes across with the idea of having too much going on and could've trimmed this down as the storyline could've worked much easier based solely on him tracking down the gang that attacked his boss and finds the criminal mastermind at the heart of everything. This simplification takes the same route and shows off what could've been the case here of the film taking on a little too much in its storyline.
As well, there's also the somewhat troubling nature of this one being way too over-the-place in regards to its constant tone and presence. The idea of trying to incorporate any kind of comedy in this one is a real struggle with just about everything here falling flat to the point of being utterly unnecessary. The worst of it is the atrocious mugging and childish antics that his friend constantly tries to shoehorn into his scenes which just become grating and irritating with it being just so out-of-place compared to the deathly serious the rest of the characters. The off-putting feel also extends to the attempted empathy when a character stumbles upon a character’s fate which just falls completely lifeless here, leaving this to fall down somewhat slightly overall.
Overview: ***/5
An enjoyable enough effort when it stays focused on the martial arts and action scenes, this one can be likable when viewed on that style but does seem to be a slightly clumsy effort outside of these elements which makes this a lesser entry. Those who appreciate the old-school Asian action films from the past that this emulates will have a lot to like here, while more discerning action fans or those looking for something more than that will be slightly turned off here and stick with more consistent fare.
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