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| TIGER CAGE. Starring - Simon Yam - Do Do Cheng - Donnie Yen - Jackie Cheung. Director - Yuen Woo Ping. Mr Huang has ordered an operation to uncover a drugs ring. Hsiu is ordered to go undercover but his identity is revealed to the main target Hsiung. The operation is a success but Hsiung escapes only to return later to take Hsiu’s life the day before his marriage to Shirley is to take place. Protected by their police badges, Shirley, Terry, Uncle Te and Ah Yu begin to beat and torture their way towards Hsiung, eventually leading to his arrest. As Hsiung is led away Ah Yu over hears him threaten to expose Uncle Te unless he helps him to escape. Within moments Hsiung is set up by Te and he too is killed. Ah Yu decides to expose Te and sets about collecting enough evidence to prosecute him. Unfortunately Te is like a father figure to Yu’s best friend Terry. Things get even more complicated when Terry is discovered murdered. Tiger Cage is a typical mid 80’s cop thriller with plenty of action and fast paced story telling, never giving you too much time to dwell on what has happened before by constantly pushing you forward with new plot elements and exciting action sequences. The majority of which are filmed well and choreographed expertly. The most memorable being when Donnie Yen (Terry) takes on the massive Michael Woods in a stunningly shot segment that is worth the entrance fee alone. Simon yam and Jackie Cheung are both very well suited to this type of movie and portray their roles well even though Jackie gets a bit over-excited when dealing with the death of Hsiu. But to see Ng Man Tat here was a bit of a surprise after his earlier offerings, as a serious actor were uninspiring to say the least. Anyway Tat turns the tables here and is both competent and convincing as the downtrodden and corrupt Uncle Te and gives us probably his finest straight role to date. Donnie Yen is never given too much to do here but does offer some seriously good fight scenes as is expected from him. Do Do Cheng even though she is given the female lead is mainly here as a token gesture and fails to do anything noteworthy. Overall Tiger Cage is an interesting movie that is carried more on action than anything else but does perform competently enough in the story stakes to recommend this to anyone. 7*******stars. |
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