Seeing as Hong Kong martial arts movies, especially ones associated with Yuen Woo Ping, have become the big thing lately, it's now fairly simple to pick up this type of movie in most stores, but I have to admit being a little surprised at finding a copy of his 1989 picture In the Line of Duty for as little as £1 on VHS, and despite the fact that I'm not a huge fan of his, I picked it up figuring at that price it should at least pass an afternoon.

This movie is actually apparently a sequel to a series of movies started in 1985 with a movie translated as 'Yes,Madam' starring Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock.. This was followed a year later by 'Royal Warriors', or 'In The Line of Duty',which starred Yeoh in another role, alongside Michael Wong and Hiroyuki Sanada which doesn't actually seem to have any link to the first movie, other than Yeoh's presence and the plot revolving around her as a Kung-Fu cop. This didn't stop the release of a movie in 1988 which went by the titles 'In the Line of Duty 3' and 'Yes, Madam 2', starring Cynthia Khan as Rachel Yeung, a Kung-Fu Cop, and confusingly Melvin Wong as the character of Michael Wong.Exactly what this has to do with the other movies is beyond me, because in reading up on this, I got as lost as I'm sure you are right now.

The movie I bought is called 'In the Line of Duty' on the box, however it also answers to the names 'In the Line of Duty 4' and 'Yes,Madam 4'. Im totally lost here, so I'm just going to refer to it as In the Line of Duty,because that's what the box calls it.

The movie follows the activities of two Seattle(as in some sort of alternate Seattle populated by mostly Asians, with a predominant language of Chinese) cops,Madam Yeung(Cynthia Khan - Lady Hunter) and Donny(Donnie Yen - Iron Monkey). While Yeung lets her emotions get in the way of her work, Donny is cool to the point of being heartless, and the two often clash based on their differing methods of policing.

In the meantime, an immigrant dockworker named Luk(Yat Chor Yuen - The Lizard) witnesses a drug bust go wrong, with an agent named Black Cat being shot dead as he tried to stop a major deal that the CIA are implicated with. Before he dies, he hands Luk a negative of film that has pictures of the CIA agent dealing, which he duly loses, and is plunged into chaos as crooked cops and thugs try to get their hands on him for the film, and the straight cops, lead by Yeung and Donny after him due to his place as a suspect for the murder of Black Cat.

When thugs looking for him kill his brother, he makes his way to Hong Kong where he thinks he will be safe, but all of the parties involved in the chaos follow, leading to him having to turn to Donny and Yeung for help, while they try to solve the problems within their job and bring down the bent cops.

Yes it isn't exactly story driven, but the plot is suffice for an 80s action picture I feel. The only major fault I have is that it was revealed to the audience far too soon the identity of the crooked lawman, which ruined any sort of mystery the film was trying to build up, if it was that is, I think the basic gist of the plot was just to get from one action set-piece to another in the quickest manner while trying to tell something resembling a story.
I don't usually go for the comedy portrayed in Kung-Fu films, it usually fails, but I have to admit the sillieness of the scene where they visit Luk's mum and he doesn't want her to see he is handcuffed to Yeung brought a smile to my face. The rest of the chuckles were brought about less intentionally, such as the villainess that looked like Barbara Streisand or the comical product placement.

Seeing as the film's goal seemed to be to get to the next action sequence, Im glad to report that there are plenty of them, and what is there is mostly good stuff, from Kung Fu duels atop ambulances,shoot-outs and scrambler jousts, this movie doesn't cut corners for action sequences, and it always keep's the viewer's adrenaline up.
But the thing is, that the sequences, entertaining as they are, never really do anything outstanding or memorable, and so it basically just becomes 'another martial arts movie' in my memory. Granted it was an entertaining one, but the fights here don't really do much to distance themselves in terms of 'whoah' factor than what you find in your average Western martial arts B-Movie. Sure, the fighters are probably more skilled at their fancy martial arts, but the sequences just don't do that much for me. They never veer into negative teritory, always staying enjoyable, but they never really do much to excell above it either. Actually Im lying, I forgot about a scene where Donny fights a white-thug after he chases him on a scrambler(they were apparently going cheap). The guy is just hilarious as he grunts and makes the most comical faces possible in the fight. While it's impossible to enjoy seriously, it does have that entertaining factor going for it. A lot of fights also had some blatantly tampering done with the speed to make things more impressive, but this contributes some humour as well.

The acting, as I've said many times, isn't something I like to judge on a foreign language film, but this, which I viewed subtitled, didn't really have anyone who stood out as looking bad, so Im not required to say anything all that bad anyway. The one complaint I do have is that Yen played his character as far too much of a complete dick at the start to ever truly be likeable. Im not sure if that was written that way or not, but this got to me.
Khan however was not only pleasing on the eyes, but did actually seem to do her job well, and I could even tell that with subs.

Speaking of the subs, on this Hong Kong Legends VHS, the subs seemed fine. I can't say how well they translate, but there were no clear errors and on the whole they allowed me to follow the story competently enough.

The sound in the picture is decent, with the music being adequate, if nothing to write home about. For those wondering, it does feature some of the comical 'hwop-eesh' noises whenever a punch or kick makes an impact, something that I haven't seen so hilariously done in a martial arts movie made post 1979.

The special effects are fairly mixed. This is before Woo-Ping went mad with Wirework, and while it is here, it doesn't violate every scene as has become the norm, and what is done is fairly acceptable. All the fights look good, and the only real complaint I have brought more chuckles, as the black henchman transformed into a white stuntman for a shot.

On the whole, Im hitting In the Line of Duty with the score I think it deserves, 2 out of 5 and a recommended. While I feel the movie is enjoyable, it's only going to really be so as a time waster for fans of the martial arts genre, and I cannot believe some of the hype the movie recieves, which is apparently only due to Woo-Ping's involvement and the fact it was made by Hong Kong and not by the West. While I found the film to be fairly enjoyable, there really isn't anything to make those not into the genre want to see it, and is really only, even to them, only recommended if it is inexpensive.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day