DVD Reviews
DVD Review: Heroic Duo
By Andy McKeague Jun 29, 2005, 19:00 GMT
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Ekin Cheng has been in many good and even great action flicks, the ‘Young and Dangerous’ or ‘Stormriders’ series to name but a few, just don’t ask him to act. He looks great in the part, plays the physical side well, but does not have the emotional range to carry any depth to his characters, as I said, HK’s Mr. Reeves.
On the other hand, Leon Lai can act, he has done some wonderful performances in the past, ‘Fallen Angels’ for Wong Kar Wai is a prime example, and added solid support for the likes of ‘Infernal Affairs 3’, so on the acting front he steels this in every single scene he is in.
Ok, now for the plot and try to keep up with me on this one.
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A cop breaks into a police station and steels some evidence and starts a fire to cover his tracks, but filled with remorse he pleads guilty and helplessly confesses that he was hypnotised to do the deed. Moments later he is lying dead on the floor with a smoking gun in his hand. Supercop Ken (Ekin Cheng), is bewildered about who can be so powerful to hypnotise someone without their knowledge and this leads him to ex-cop and now prisoner Jack Lai (Leon Lai), who happens to be a master at hypnosis.
Ken poses the question to Jack, who could do this, and of course none other than the Master of masters of hypnosis trained Jack, but only he knows what this mysterious crime lord may look like. So Ken has to get Jack out of jail to track down this super villain.
Gun battles and false leads later, they end up at an auction where some very pricey gems will be going under the hammer. Jack hypnotises Ken to steel the goods and let him escape, but the police don’t believe Ken is under the influence and start chasing him as an accomplice to the crime. So was all this a ruse to get Jack out of the clink ?
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Both Jack and Ken are on the run. Ken’s only hope is in his girlfriend and fellow police officer Brenda (Kar Yan Lam). She keeps in contact and aids Ken in trying to find the whereabouts of Jack and why he escaped, and by the time they are all face-to-face again it has been explained that Jack is being forced into this predicament with his family and ex partners’ family being held captive at gunpoint. On your way to this point there are lots of gun battles and times where you don’t know who is hypnotised or pretending to be and it all gets rather messy. The aforementioned gun play is questionable too, from the calibre of Benny Chan who helmed ‘Gen X Cops’ and ‘New Police Story’ he should know better, but time after time when people are shot, the squibs are flying, and they don’t even act like they have had a mosquito bite, it’s almost like ‘The A-team’ with blood. That said there are still plenty of groovy fistfights, stunt-work and general chaos to please most action fans.
But why is it called ‘Heroic Duo’ ? Ok you have the two main male leads, but they could not have gotten through the piccie without the aid of plucky female cop Brenda. So was it just a case that the title ‘The Heroic Trio’ had already been used ?
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On the extras front there are two short interview segments, one with director Benny Chan and the second with the film's fight choreographer, Stephen Tung, both lasting less than 15 minutes together. There is also a short behind the scenes featurette which looks at filming in Hong Kong as well as the great scene on the Tsing Ma Bridge.
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