Customer Reviews

Millionaire's Express [VHS]

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

 

 

This 1987 Hong Kong production is easily one of Sammo Hung's most enjoyable and spectacular directorial efforts. It's got the all-star, non-stop action, farcical comedy approach of the epic Hollywood comedy IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Sammo plays a man who brings his bevy of prostitutes to a remote railroad town and sets up a hotel. He arranges for a train accident to stop the Shanghai Express and force its passengers to stay in town and pay for the hospitality of his establishment. Meanwhile, a large bandit gang on horseback is headed for the town to rob the passengers. There are lots of little subplots leading up to a series of all-out martial arts brawls between the townsmen, passengers and bandits that spread through the entire town (constructed for the film in Thailand).

The cast is a who's who of Hong Kong movie stars, with Jackie Chan's buddies, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, heading the cast, followed by such other HK stars as Jimmy Wang Yu (as the father of Wong Fei Hung!); Shih Kien (the lead villain from ENTER THE DRAGON); HK mainstays Yuen Wah, Wu Ma, Richard Ng, Dick Wei, and comedy star Eric Tsang; Japanese stars Yasuaki Kurata and Yukari Oshima; American martial artist Cynthia Rothrock, in her first HK film (she gets to fight Sammo); and Australian martial artist Richard Norton. The latter two wear American civil war costumes! (Jackie Chan's refusal to join the cast caused a rift between him and Sammo.) This is Hong Kong cinema at its entertaining best. Unlike most U.S. action film directors, Sammo Hung is equally adept at comedy and action.

Sammo really goes all out on this one. There is a train coming through town and Sammo plans on halting the passengers trip so that they will visit their town and they can profit. He will do this by any means necessary keeping his brothel's profits that could be made in mind all the time. While this isn't one of Sammo's best comedies it is still very good. Eric Tsang always bugs me but thankfully we get literally ALL of the stars that Sammo worked with throughout the 80's. I think the only ones that were missing were Billy Chow who wasn't discovered by Sammo just yet and Jackie Chan. With all of their problems I can imagine Jackie wasn't in this because of some sort of feud. I could name all of the side characters like Lam Ching Ying, Yuen Wah, and Chin Kar Lok but your mind would be completely blown. we find out early on that Yuen Biao is going to have a starring role which is never a bad thing.

When Sammo blown the train tracks and completes his plan, bandits show up to rob the train passengers. On board guarding China's national treasure(a book) are Japanese masters Yusuaki Kuratu, Hwang Jang Lee, Yukari Oshima. Also making hilarious cameos are Sheh Kien and Jimmy Wang Yu. Richard Ng is on hand for the comedy as is Lau Kar Wing and Lung Wei Wang shows up for a funny fight with Hoi Meng and Hsou Ho though Lung Wei is of course as serious as ever. The best thing about this movie are the dream matchups. Yusuaki Kuratu vs. Richard Norton is OK, Yuen Baio vs. Dick Wei is great, and Sammo Hung vs. Cynthia Rothrick is why I watch these movies. I could have used more action but when Sammo brings it, everybody in the world beware!

The Universal Laser and Media version is letterboxed with a good subtitling job keeping the words in the black bars for the most part. I would still like to see a special edition of this though. Does anyone know if there is one, maybe by Hong Kong Legends?

This movie is riddled with poor voice acting, bad camera work, terrible special effects, and it all adds up to the funniest movie ever made!! The music is so cliched it's laughably bad and the voices, while poorly done, are full of character(one guy even sounds homosexual). The intentional humor in this movie doesn't stand a chance against the blatant showing of a low budget masterpeice.

I bought this tape thinking that I was going to see a lot of Yukari Oshima as a ninja, but she only had about 2 minutes of screen time. I thought the Japanese trio were cool and reminded me of the characters from the "Wrath of the Ninja" Anime. Down points were too many characters and a lousy plot. Some of the highlights were some of the comedy, Yukari Oshima's anime-ish ninja outfit, and the cameo character appearance of Wong Fei Hung as a kid.

Starts off real good, youre getting to think youll see allot of sumo, but theres only one really good fight (with yuen biao!)and the movie as a whole isnt very much. Whang jang lee (the worlds best& fastet kicker) is totally wasted. nice performence,as allways,by Norton. Rothrock-I hate,but shes doing fine,and offcourse theres yuen biao-my personal god.