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ζ±ζ–Ήθ€θ™Ž (1990)
The Cyprus Tigers


Reviewed by: mrblue
Date: 09/19/2003

A team of Chinese cops based in Greece known as "The Cyprus Tigers" and a crooked businessman, along with his Japanese henchmen, are after a set of counterfeit money printing plates. And that's about it. This movie is about as one-dimensional as they come, mostly stemming from problems with the weak script. There's no explanation given as to why the Chinese cops are in Greece, for instance. Sub-plots come and go at the drop of the hat. One that involves Simon Yam (who plays the head Tiger) going back to HK to visit his wife (Joey Wong) goes absolutely nowhere and grinds the film to a halt. Besides a fairly weak fight with Sophia Crawford taking on Simon in a parking garage, more time is seemingly spent on showing Joey at a fashion shoot than any real character development or good action. Seeing the lovely Ms. Wong is not a bad thing in itself -- but I wanted action, or at least a good story line or something.

And that's this movie's main problem. It offers nothing. The whole thing seems to smack of a marketing gimmick to set it apart from the dozens of similar movies that were coming out around this time. But the problem is, the producers couldn't come up with a big enough budget to support this movie and as a result it looks -- and, more importantly, feels -- very cheap. In fact, besides showing copious footage of topless beaches (which are one of this film's "highlights"), there's really nothing to distinguish itself from a movie set in Hong Kong, besides maybe the number of plain lousy gweilo actors. Sometimes I wonder if they just pull these people off the street or something. Anyhow, getting back to the film's budget, the end results are so bad it's almost laughable. For instance, Simon starts out in the movie driving a Porsche. Now you might think that this would factor into the movie in some way, like he's going to use it in a chase. Nope. The producers probably couldn't get the car for more than a day so for the rest of the movie Simon drives some crappy Celica and worse yet, rides on the back of Conan Lee's dirtbike.

This movie wasn't totally bad, though. Some of the jokes are pretty funny, there's some decent action and Simon Yam, as always, looks pretty damn cool throughout the movie (especially compared with Conan Lee's wardrobe, which consists of crappy racing shirts, open vests, and plain not wearing much of anything). But in the end, it's not enough to save it from being a stinker.


Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 02/17/2002
Summary: Goofy comedy with bits of action

What this inept trio of HK cops is doing in Cyprus is never explained. They spend a lot of time razzing each other and their long-suffering boss, and there's a ten-minute scene early on where they hang around the beach and closely inspect all the beautiful girls who are topless.

Every now and then, they get around to some (sometimes action-packed) police work, against leading citizen and counterfeiter King Wu and his bunch of meanies.

In between saying "another climax today" every five minutes, they do battle with Wu and the Nachino brothers.

The action scenes range from a bit lame to pretty good but, considering the incredible talent available, should have been stunning. Ko Fei looks to have been unsure whether to concentrate more on acting as the villain or directing, and he's pretty lame on both. He's just nowhere near badass enough for his character.

The Greek Island photography is great and, supplemented by lashing of bouzoukis in the background, you sometimes forget for a moment that this is a HK actioner. A few things puzzled me. Why, for instance, wasn't Robin Shou credited, for his small but fairly significant part, as the younger Nachino brother ? He spends more time on screen than Joey Wong (looking delicious), who is credited fourth.

A few fun scenes, but lots of flab.

Reviewer Score: 3

Reviewed by: hkcinema
Date: 12/21/1999

A hilarious action adventure about an unstoppable trio ofundercover cops known as the "Cypress Tigers."

[Reviewed by Tai Seng Catalog]