The Double Crossers (15) |Home Ents Review
Cast: Shin Il-ryong, Chen Sing, Michael Chan, Tuti Kirana, Chao Hsiung, Sammo Hung
Review by Colin Dibben
Cop Lung (Shin) discovers that his mother and father were murdered by Wang (Hsiung) a business partner who has gone on to become a major Asian criminal. Wang’s modus operandi is to jet set around the world, thereby staying one step ahead of the authorities. Lung leaves his job and teams up with Chang (Sing), a friend of his father’s whose skills extend to ‘long con’ tricks, to follow Wang and bring him down.
You’re probably too young to remember those 1960s and 1970s Euro-thrillers in which a hero travels the world kicking ass and meeting the lovely ladies. Well it turns out the Hong Kong film industry was knocking these sorts of films out too. Locations in Singapore and Indonesia, beaches, hotels, highly coloured drinks with umbrella swizzle sticks sticking out of them, jaw-dropping clothes, big sunglasses, groovy hairdos, funky music on the soundtrack max-ing out on wah-wah guitar … it’s all here.
On the other hand, the film has an almost melancholic air. This is due to several things: the slow pace, the subdued ochre colour palate, the desultory landscapes in which stuff happens, and the frankly rather dull exposition at the beginning of the film. Lung’s father has recorded a message for him in the event of his death, a message which sets the story up in a very clunky way – one might even say that this gets the story out of the way so that you can focus on watching people fight! All of these aspects are not quite what you expect from an action adventure film, which makes The Double Crossers doubly interesting.
Maybe this is the double cross that The Double Crossers performs on viewers: after 20 minutes you are expecting exotic locations and glamorous action, as in a Bond movie ripoff; instead you get frenetic fighting sequences in a tawdry 1970s travel agent’s advert for two dictatorships.
Trailer:
