Customer Reviews

Wicked City [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The comic book action is what makes the backbone of this movie that is based on the manga. The plot involves a woman from another dimension and a human policeman from earth who are trying to keep the peace between their races by preventing an assasination and staying alive in the process. There are subplots involving policeman's partner being part human and part preturnatual beastie keeping his evil wild side in check while helping him and the woman out; the love story between the policeman and the woman; and all of the characters questioning where their loyalties lie. I highly recommend this movie to anime and manga fans.

First of all, this movie is not co-directed by yuen woo ping. Woo ping acts in this movie,and from the lack of fight scenes you can tell he didn't have anything to do with directing. Don't get me wrong though, this does have some very interesting scenes. For example, monster father and son standing on top of and controlling some airplanes. Or their complete disregard of the laws of physics. Bottom line. if you're looking for a woo ping directed martial arts masterpiece, you'll want to look elsewhere. Like,Iron Monkey,tai chi2, wing chun, Twin Warriors

I've read all the reviews on this page, and people are taking this film far too seriously. Tsui Hark is a good writer people,a nd you don't know satire when u see it? He takes so many elements: Sci-Fi, wacky hong kong comedy, martial arts and john woo bulletfests, and overloads them with cheesy melodrama. Peter Mak takes all these elements and weaves a lightning quick stupid movie that you can't help but like. I've read many reviews that it has underlying tones about the Chinese takeover, but that's really reading into the film too much. Have a few drinks, and enjoy this film for what it is!

Probably the best SFX I ever saw from HK productions.(uptill now.) the director did a good job with a small budget. compare to Hollywood million dollars production. It was brilliant.

1.It's a cut version. Carman Lee is not killed by Jacky Chen.
2.Picture and sound quality is very poor.
3.The audio tracks is only Cantonese without Mandarin.

Greetings;

Who hasn't ever seen a live action adaptation of a cartoon before? Has it ever been a shot for shot faithful reproduction? No of course not and why? People most people bend like that and make up can only make someone look cartoonish enough to an extent before it all looks ridiculous. So while this isn't the greatest live action movie based on a mildly pornographic adult themed anime...Wait, is it? Well, off hand, I can think of several others- Kekko Kamen-four live action movies about a nude super heroine, weather woman-have seen the anime of it but have yet to watch the live action, though I have both movie. Angel of darkness-four or so movies but I have yet to see or buy them, La Blue Girl-I think that is what it was called anyway, three volues or so(its been a while) of more sex driven live action-ness. But I would say this was still a pretty good movie all the same. One of the better of the less sex, even nudity driven numbers out there.

I can see though where some of the other reviwers are coming from, no it was as good as the anime, no it didn't have the really perverted old man who was secretly protecting the two people assigned to watch over him that were supposed to create a kind of monster-human hybrid meant to usher in a new world where the monsters and humans could live in peace together sort-of. If you look at it from the right perspective though, you could almost say this is a sequel and the plan to create the human-monster hybrid plan failed, illustrated by the half monster/human partner to the male lead. That would almost have been a smarter way to go I think, changed this one a bit more to be a sequel, but I think I am about...Lemme see now, made in 1992...So yeah, 19 years too late. 19. Oh well, I will get em' next time, I am sure.

This movie though seems to take the concept of mosters as being evolved from reptiles whereas humans are mammals and the humans of this movie and the monsters therein are just some sort of higher evolution altogether which is sort of interesting too, different slant sort of from the anime, as I recall. Some reviwers mentioned that the special effects were reminicent of godzilla movies, well, yeah, this was afterall done in 1992, CG wasn't really big back then, as you may recall. So Godzilla-ish special effects were sort of what you had to work with.

Wasn't as bad as others have made it out to be though. I just wasn't really thrilled with the ending, would have preferred the male lead...Lung had stuck with the female lead...Gaye instead of making her leave back to her world. Sort of a downer, considering all it took for her to be safe, Lung too.But at any rate, not a terrible movie.

Thank you and take care...

i bought this movie because the cartoon version knocked my socks off,(i liked it).this movie was incoherent,with only a few good scenes,if your not a HUGE fan of b movies you best avoid this one.for collecters its ok.