Reviewed by: j.crawford Date: 01/22/2007 Summary: mostly absurd scenario After working with such masters of the martial arts film as Yuen Woo-Ping, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, and Jackie Chan as Action Director, Cho Wing finally gets an opportunity to direct his own film. Too bad for him that his big chance came from producer/screenwriter Ricky Ng Kwok-Shing and not one of the aforementioned masters. S. D. U. '97 is one of those bad titles that conjure a certain kind of movie in a consumer's mind. It would be easy to think that a film similar to Gordon Chan Ka-Seung's Option series was in hand. This is not like those films if you are interested in the armory. This low budget production has very few weapons, but good hand-to-hand fights. The emphasis is more on the inter-personal relationship drama that is part of the Option films. A group of Hong Kong SDU cops are lead on a mission by their new Mainlander leader who gets them in a jam that leads to disciplinary action. Resign or get fired, they are told. There is a bunch of Post-Handover politics at work in the opening sequence. Three months later, they end up running a karaoke bar, getting in more trouble, and taking some soldier of fortune type work to help a millionaire recover his kidnapped daughter. Director Cho gets a number of good performances from his cast. Yu Rong-Guang, Joe Junior, and Law Kar-Ying bring a level of coolness to the mostly absurd scenario played out by the energetic group of second tier actors that includes Jimmy Wong Ga-Lok, Edmond So Chi-Wai, and Hilary Tsui Ho-Ying. Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 09/17/2005 After a botched mission, a SDU (Hong Kong version of SWAT) squad goes into private practice and takes on the case of rescuing a tycoon's daughter. This is average cop drama/action stuff all the way, with a few good action sequences but way too many lame, long-winded exposition scenes. These "police procedural" movies seem to be popular in Hong Kong (and with some fans over here), but I don't really see why. They seem to be the same thing over and over again, and this film is just more of the same. I would guess that S.D.U. '97 is worth a look if you're into this type of movie, but it's something I'd never likely watch again. [review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewed by: ipkevin Date: 09/02/2002 Summary: Unbelievably awful. Cheapo production (even by HK standards) set largely in the Philippines. Even the most hardcore SWAT/SDU fans who love to ogle the cool equipment will be let down by this one - After the first 5 minutes, there are no more SDU scenes at all! It's just extremely boring and cliched melodrama (eg, gangsters tried to muscle in on a kindly nightclub owner), acted by mediocre-to-bad nobodies, and then topped off with ridiculously sloppy action scenes. Really terrible, slapdash stuff that fails to excite and is incredibly inaccurate to boot. If you want tense, authentic SWAT action, watch one of those Gordon Chan-directed SDU films (eg, First Option). If you want unrealistic but very well executed action, watch a John Woo movie. SDU 97 provides neither of those types of thrills and is a true waste of time. There are probably hundreds of cheap, lesser-known HK flicks made in the late 80s and early 90s that are more entertaining than SDU '97. Go for one of those instead. By the way, Yu Rong Guang's role is strictly a cameo despite his prominence on the box cover.