Captain Donnie Yan (Donnie Yen) and Madam Rachel Yeung Lai-ching (Cynthia Khan) are on the trail of cocaine dealers. When she goes off script and gets found by a dockworker named Luk Wan-ting (Yuen Yat-chor) who thinks that she’s an illegal immigrant. He feels bad for her and gives her money and a place to say. As Donnie stays after the criminals, she learns that Luk’s brother Ming (Liu Kai-chi) is being  attacked by criminals that he owes money to. The two fight off the gang and when her cover’s blown, Rachel gets back on the case. At the same time, their partner Peter Woods gets shotgun blasted by the real boss behind all of the drug deals is a CIA officer named Mr. Robinson.

I’ve just explained about the first ten minutes or so of this dense film, one that builds tension and then goes as wild as any of the other movies in this series.

Luk Wan-Ting is a witness to that murder and gets framed for it. He escapes the police and a killer, which sends our heroes after him. She thinks he’s innocent based on their past history and he thinks that he’s not, so we have some tension between our supercops. In fact, things get even tenser when they start to wonder which cops they can trust and decide to hide out with Luk and attempt to get him to testify.

The final fights in this film — once the plot is solved and we can, as they say, get to the fireworks factory — are incredible. The battle between the CIA agent (Michael Woods) and Yen on top of a building has more action than every movie that will come out of Hollywood this year. There’s also a great battle between Khan and karate champion Farlie Ruth Kordica that has the two falling from huge heights and kicking each other repeatedly. Also: if you like glass being broken — I do — this movie will give you all the shattering and smashing of glass that you can handle.

Director Yuen Woo-ping is a name you should already know but if you don’t, he’s the director of Drunken Master, Tiger Cage, Iron Monkey and so many more movies. He also was the fight choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Fist of Legend, Black Mask, the second and third Matrix and Kill Bill 1 and 2. Seeing his name means that you’re about to have your mind absolutely blown.

88 Films’ reissue of In the Line of Duty 4 has the option of watching the movie in Cantonese and two different English dubs, as well as extras like a commentary by F.J. DeSanto, an interview with Donnie Yen and trailers. There’s also a gorgeous book and posters for each movie. You can buy the set from MVD.

Rachel Yeung (Cynthia Khan) wants to be a tough policewoman, but her uncle (Paul Chun) is her superior and he keeps her out of the line of fire. When a fashion show is interrupted by two thieves working for the Red Army — Nakamura Genji (Stuart Ong) and Michiko Nishiwaki (Michiko Nishiwaki) — and nearly the entire audience is killed, including the partner of Inspector Otaka (Hiroshi Fukioka), his path of revenge brings the two together. She’s an incredible martial artist; he’s a cop that refuses to follow the rules, causing damage to everything around him in his obsessive quest for justice.

In 79 minutes, we get near non-stop death and destruction, an evil couple who really love each other even though he’s dying from an inoperable disease and two closing fights: Otaka battling Genji with pipes and hooks and Rachel fighting both Nishiwaki and her henchman (Dick Wei).

Cynthia Khan may not be Michelle Yeoh, but she works really hard in this. She was a dancer before becoming an actor and her athleticism comes in handy, even if she’s doubled in the final fight. Man, I could watch as many of these movies as they chose to make.

88 Films’ In the Line of Duty 3 blu ray is a re-release of the film that they had out last year in the out of print box set. This film has the option of Cantonese and two different English dubs and extras like a commentary by Frank Djeng and Michael Worth, an interview with John Sham by Frederic Ambroisine and trailers. You can buy it from MVD.

There are three Hex movies but they aren’t all that connected, other than this films’ protagonist, Ma Su (Lo Meng), being the neighbor of the main character in Hex vs. Witchcraft. He finds the same bag of gold that was behind all of the supernatural moments of that film, including the tablet of Liu Ah Cui, whose spirit possesses Yeung Suk Yi (Nancy Lau Nam-Kai) and has her seduce Ma Su.

Kuei Chi-Hung has created a movie where Yoda randomly shows up and then Darth Vader appears with a lightsaber that removes clothing. There’s also a real estate developer who hires Ma Su and plans to complete his development by June 30, 1997, which is when Hong Kong became part of China again. In fact, this evil land owner even gets branded with what was supposed to say 1997 but Shaw Brothers replaced that with their logo.

Eventually, Ma Su fades into the background and Yeung Suk Yi goes on the offensive to get back at the developer for kicking everyone out of their apartment. By the end, Ma Su has fallen for the ghost and invokes a monkey god to battle an animated statue of Thomas Jefferson because, well, why not at this point? What if it also turns into a slot machine and gets everyone rich with the gold that comes out of it? Let’s do that too.

They could have made twenty of these movies and I would watch every one.

In this movie, director Chih-Hung Kwei is remaking his frequent collaborator Chang Cheh’s The Invincible Fist and telling the tale of “Killer Constable” Leng Tian-Yin (Chen Kuan-tai). He’s been ordered by security chief of the Forbidden City Liu Jing Tian (Cho Tat-wah) — who has been commanded by Manchurian Empress Dowager Cixi — to bring back the five thieves that stole 2 million taels from the Royal Treasury dead or alive. When you’re called the Killer Constable, you never bring them back alive.

Trying to assemble his five best men, Leng learns that not even his brother, Cun Yi (Gam Sai-Yuk) wants to join him. He is tired of the brutal justice that his brother delivers. We witness this as Leng follows the thieves to a watermill and tortures one of them in front of his family. Yet you’re left to wonder if his rough style is warranted when one of his men, Peng Lai (Ai Fei), is rewarded for feeding the starving villagers by being staked and must be killed by Leng to ease his suffering. The thieves also hire Fan Jin-Peng (Jason Pai Piao), a killing master who murders elder constable Ma Zhong (Gam Biu) and injures Leng before being defeated.

Finally, after a battle with the leader of these thieves, Fang Feng-Jia (Ku Feng), and are helped by the intervention of Cun Yu. Leng is almost killed but is nursed back to health by Fang’s blind daughter Xiao Lan (Yau Chui-Ling). When Fang enters his home, instead of fighting, the Constable and he pretend to be friends in front of his daughter. In truth, it was Liu Jing Tian who stole the gold and sent Leng after him, as he knew that no one would survive. Another group of killers attack and Fang sacrifices himself to allow Leng to live, making him promise to care for his daughter. However, the Constable is driven with rage after his brother is killed, so he attacks Liu Jing Tian, killing many of his guards before wiping out the corrupt man. However, a trap also kills Leng, leaving Xiao Lan waiting for a father and protector who never arrives.

Kuei said that, “I simply wanted to depict how insignificant commoners are and how, under totalitarian rule, they turn out to be the victims.” While showing off the violence and combat that one expects from a Shaw Brothers movie, this also goes beyond to show the very real suffering that comes from that same brutality. As the only good person in the film is a blind woman — a scene repeated in The Killer as Ah Jong and Li Ying pretend to be old buddies for the benefit of the sightless Jennie — the moral is simple. The only pureness in this bloody universe can’t witness it.

Kuei was also inspired by another classic film: “I love Dr. Zhivago. In Killer Constable, I want to create a character like Zhivago. Despite his position in the high court, the protagonist is a righteous man. Yet in the corruption and poverty-stricken era at the end of the Qing dynasty, there is not much good he can do on his own. Hence he is deluded by society and lives his life foolishly.”

And yet in America, the most violent country in the world, all of this complexity struggles to be understood, as this played under the exploitation title Karate Exterminators.

Killer Constable was Chih-Hung Kwei’s only period wuxia film. He’d make his mark on many other genres, including women-in-prison (The Bamboo Dolls), modern crime (The Teahouse and its sequel Big Brother Cheng), women in trouble (The Bod Squad), comedy (Rat Catcher) and of course, his many horror films such as The Killer Snakes, Hex and Corpse Mania. In the 1990s, he moved to the United States where he opened a pizza shop. Yes, at one point in our reality, you could order a pizza made by the visionary director of The Boxer’s Omen.

His son, Ming Beaver Kwei, a producer of movies like My Lucky Star and The Meg, said of his father: “He’d bitch about his work every day, never quite satisfied how his work had turned out, or how it was being distributed. He was only ever happy when he knew for a day that a film had worked at the box office, then he’d start worrying again. He’d be so happy to know that his films were getting a second look today.”

Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy, Christmas Bloody Christmas) are brother and sister who have barely escaped a robbery. To escape arrest, they head to an abandoned farm that just so happens to be a place where multiple timelines all intersect and end up being part of an experiment. They are told that unless they follow a set of instructions, they can never leave.

Directed and written by Michael Felker, who edited Synchronic and Something In the Dirt, Joseph thinks that he has it all figured out, as they can hide in another dimension for a few weeks, unable to be found until the cops forget all about the robbery. This was produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who made the aforementioned Something In the Dirt, and like many of their movies, this has many twists and turns, becoming almost unpredictable.

Joseph and Sidney are told that to escape, they have to kill someone who is also in this time. They have no idea who it is, when they are coming and what they have to do. Sidney has a daughter that she never wants to abandon and Joseph has already cost her two weeks.

This is not a simple movie to understand at points but it all comes together. It feels like the leads could have been in several films as these characters, as they are so well lived.

I watched Things Will Be Different at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine is directed and written by Graham Skipper (Sequence Break), who also stars as Wozzek, who may be the last man on Earth. At one point, before he slipped into depression and started drinking the days away, he lived with his wife Nellie (Christina Bennett Lind) in a cabin. They were safe and should have been happy, but they grew apart and one day, she died.

Skipper spends most of the film on his own, in a cabin, having flashbacks, getting wasted and speaking to the voice of The Deleterian (Paul Guyet), who knows more than he tells Wozzek, who is trying to build a machine to bring his wife back to life when he isn’t giving himself therapy through questions he’s recorded earlier.

It’s also a Christmas movie and a puppet film, as when The Deleterian is revealed, it’s learned that he is also the last of his species, having eaten everything else on Earth that is alive other than Wozzek and that he needs someone to talk to. He tries to make this film’s protagonist more introspective, but that’s impossible by this point. And when he finally does succeed in saving his wife, she reminds him that it’s for him and not for her. That’s probably the nicest thing she says or does to him,

This is an auteur film in the best of ways, a one-man showcase for ideas, acting and story. It held my attention throughout and I can’t wait for more people to see it.

I watched The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.