Customer Reviews

In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What really makes this film are the awsome fights, especially the finale with Cynthia Kahn and big Aussie gal Kimm Marie Penn...both of these ladies rock!

We should just call this movie Middle Man. None of the movies have any correlation other than they are cop movies and most have Cythia Khan in it. But they are not really cop movies. I would put them in the exploitation genre. The only reason these movies are made is to put action on the screen. I am not a fan of In the Line of Duty 4 but this was a great installment.

The story isn't really very interesting but they did put a lot of drama and emotions in the second half which is something that this series really needed.

So the story is not the reason to watch this, obviously. Cynthia Khan though will fulfill your needs. It was nice to see a couple of Americans getting in on the action at the start. Also look out for Billy Chow who has 2 great fights. I don't know how Billy Chow makes it to the second fight but he does and that is all that matters. So with the story being that Cynthia Khan's brother is being framed, she has a whole bunch of people to take down. The final fight starts with a pretty good fight where a guy who uses a cane as his weapon, but the finale between Khan and real life undeafeted kumite champ Kim Penn is spectacular. There is a kick that Penn does(wire enhanced) at the start that has to be seen to be believed. Khan also gets a couple of AMAZING kicks in this movie.

I am stuck between a 3 and a 4 on this movie but some of the wirework just didn't sit well with me.

The DVD from Universal Laser and Video company is not the best picture quality but is more than watchable. You could see EVERYTHING that was happening in the night scenes which is very rare for a non remastered print. Also after seeing thousands of these movies you get used to translating the subtitles yourself. Adding words, correcting the spelling, putting words in order in the sentence, etc... But this one has a ton of great translated phrases. There is one where Billy Chow is holding a kid hostage and actor Lo Lieh says "get out of my son"!

This Middle Man title is actually more appropriate for In the Line of Duty IV. This movie starts out with a decent fight scene and its all down hill from there. Its more of a drama about people who are friends of friends in this movie. Cynthia Khan has a relative who has friends that are into some information smugglin and thats basically her beef to get into a lot of the action in this movie. Like others stated this film has very little to do with the original series theres absolutely no comedy as in other installments its a very serious drama and not enough action for me. I really stopped paying attention because of how boring this film was, i mean you can get up and go get something to eat and you won't miss much. This one doesn't measure up to the rest, If you want to watch a good ITLOD series i'd go for 4 or 2.

Pros: Cynthia Khan

Cons: Too much drama, Not Enough Action, Fights were poorly choreographed, Story and plot were very weak.

MIDDLE MAN (1990) is the fifth and arguably weakest entry in the famed IN THE LINE OF DUTY series of Hong Kong films about hard-kicking, gun-toting HK policewomen, although it does offer a lot of action scenes featuring star Cynthia Khan. The barely comprehensible storyline has to do with U.S. military secrets being sold to foreign buyers using a multinational gang based in Korea. Cynthia plays a Hong Kong cop whose cousin, an American serviceman (David Wu), turns to her for help when he's implicated in the plot. This slim peg is the excuse for a steady stream of scenes of Cynthia shooting, kung fu fighting, leaping, running, chasing, and performing all kinds of pretty dangerous stunts on location in both Hong Kong and Korea. The pace never flags and Cynthia delivers the goods. However, unlike IN THE LINE OF DUTY IV, in which she was partnered with Donnie Yen, she's pretty much on her own here, with no major fighting co-stars. The only other faces familiar to HK fans are Lo Lieh (FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH), as an aging gang boss who barely gets involved in the action, and Billy Chow (FIST OF LEGEND), who has one smashing good fight scene with Cynthia in a spacious modern private home.

Many of Cynthia's opponents are Caucasian and a lot of English is spoken on the Cantonese track of this DVD. Her most formidable such foe is Kim Maree Penn, an attractive Australian blonde who gives Cynthia a run for her money in the final fight staged in a display room filled with glass cases ripe for breaking.