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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
ODing ON DELIRIUM, November 22, 2000
Maximum velocity adrenaline fuels the 1994 Hong Kong live-action rehab of the anime watershed. It's got enough juice to jack up half a dozen movies. And it's so frantic and rampant, you'd have to stop midway to catch your breath. Set in a Hong Kong strangleheld by an economic cartel of alien shapeshifters, it follows two alienbusters, played by Jackie Cheung and Leon Lai, as they get to the bottom of a bodycount of junky wormfood. The gunhappy set pieces will , of course, unhinge your jaws. And this is packed with more ideas than Roland Emmerich and Jan De Bont's combined past/present/future ouevre. But director Mak Kit Tai doesn't have a clue what to do with them. Much like Emmerich and De Bont, really. So. When in doubt,overcompensate. Mak then revs everything up to a hyperbolic bluster where one alien hatchetman becomes a killer clock and another disguises itself as punch and still another morphs into a horny pinball machine, a carnivorous elevator and a Giger-like motorcycle-woman. Amazing on paper but it all plays a losing round of catch-up with the hit-and-miss (but mostly miss) special effects. When it gets to the climactic , and laughable, airborne duel between two aliens mounting hijacked 747s, exhilaration becomes exasperation and you're never sure if you're gasping in awe or just starting to gag. Camp delirium cranked up to 11, without a doubt. But I'd stick with the anime.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A movie for anyone who had a love affair with comic books., August 19, 1999
I grew up reading comic books and watching Anime cartoons. I adore movies which revive the exitement I got reading though the latest X-Men or watching the next episode of Evangelion.
Wicked City is cheezy and overdramatic; but this is its charm. Comic books and Anime ARE almost annoyingly goofy--building secret organizations with super powers, they give a reality to our dreams. Wicked City has surreal fight scenes. It has a twisting and turning, sometimes confusing storyline. It has special effects remnoscient of early Godzilla movies. It is a live action Comic book. It is Anime come to life. It is a pleasant change from the high budget Hollywood movies.
To anyone who still dreams of flying like superman, or wishes they had a superpower, this is a movie you will enjoy.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
goofy and entertaining, September 25, 1999
While this can't hold a candle to the anime on which it is based (in fact I recommend you see the anime first, since it makes the plot a lot easier to follow), it's still an exciting, fun, undeniably entertaining sci-fi/action/monster movie with cheap but generally effective special effects. Thank god for Asian cinema - an American director wouldn't have taken the storyline seriously, even if there was one with the balls to attempt it.
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