The main premise of the film is centered around the factual event of Dr Sun Yat-Sen paying a visit to Hong Kong to discuss plans for a revolution against the corrupt Manchu reign in the early part of the 20th century, the Manchus try to prevent this from happening by attempting to assassinate Dr Sun whilst those loyal to the uprising try to protect him in his pursuit. The result is an incredible build up of suspense throughout the film leading up to the day of the doctor's arrival, followed by an explosive clash between the two opposing forces.
I remember thinking at the time that it reminded me of 'In the Line of Fire' in the way that the film plays out. Although Clint Eastwood did not appear in the movie i'm afraid to say.
Whilst it is a serious film with a history lesson at it's core, it is not without it's moments of comedy. One character, named 'The Green Giant', was very tall and me and my friend Jim were wondering if he was a basketball player....any doubts that I had about this were well and truely quashed when later on in the film he began to slam-dunk watermelons onto the bad guys heads. It was also good to see John Shum back on the screen in a more serious role, albeit with slightly less hair than during his Pom-Pom days.
Another surprise was seeing Simon Yam play another role that did not fit his usual typecast characters, it seems that as he gets older the desire to branch out is upon him. And this is also clearly reinforced by his win of the Best Actor award this year for a seperate movie in which he played a distressed shoe-maker. As ever Donnie Yen pulled off a great performance in both action and drama plus it took me a while to spot an ageing Leon Lai who donned a powerful iron fan, a weapon that i've always been fond of.
I doubt that Eric Tsang's voice will ever break though, playing the chief of police his high-pitched voice came across as more humerous than authoritive....which I suppose does suit him perfectly!
One of the best performances in the movie for me was the character played by the newcomer Li YuChun, who unfortunately missed out on the award for Best Supporting Actress, throughout the film I was totally convinced by the character's passion.
The music was one of the stars of the show I felt, as at certain points throughout the film I kept thinking to myself 'this is great'. It was also slightly different in it's approach than other films similar to this, and of course it picked up the Best Score award for this.
It goes without saying that the fight choreography was good, although not outstanding I felt, but when you consider that Stephen Tung won the Hong Kong film award for this and then look at the other nominees (Corey Yuen Kwai and Chin Kar-Lok) you know that it must've been good.
Overall I thought that this movie was great and it's suspense was the winning formula, I loved the way that they executed the elements of action, drama and comedy and equal parts whilst also putting across an important history lesson. I got some fight scenes, had a few laughs, and also learned something in the process.....a film deserving of it's outstanding achievement.
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