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Simply Perfect

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

You would expect the team up of master director Ringo Lam and actor Andy Lau would have had better results. Unfortunately The Adventurers is a somewhat lesser affair for both Director and Star.The adventurers is a below par (for Ringo Lam) thriller, involving Lau's character Mandy (yes you did read that right)going undercover in America to infiltrate the gang of the man that killed his parents when he was a boy.Competently made, but more could have been done with the plot and characters. It does involve some good action scenes, but Lam has done better and on a smaller budget. Lam said at the time that it was impossible to make a decent film with Andy Lau because half of the budget was spent on his fee alone. This doesn't make it a bad film.Generally the performances are good especially Rosemund Kwan as the film's Femme Fatale. Worth a look, but for a better example of Lam check out his other classics The Victim, City on Fire or Full Contact.

This great Ringo Lam action vehicle, which features Andy Lau in a strong, dark role, is unlike anything Lam has done before. It has an organic, nihilistic quality to it, and is an amazingly accomplished technical piece of film-making. The cinematography, by Arthur Wong ("Eastern Condors") and Ardy Lam, is breathtaking. The score, by Teddy Robin Kwan, is hypnotic, and achieves a resonance most scores can only dream of. Though it begins as a simple tale of revenge, it takes unexpected detours which rapidly broaden its scope. There are many accomplished scenes of suspense and action that are jaw-droppingly brutal, yet curiously beautiful. The film's Cambodian opening has a dark, dream-like quality to it that is later echoed when Lau's character makes his first attempt on the life of the man who killed his parents. The star's first meeting with Rosamund Kwan is a keeper, as is a bloody sequence in which assassins ambush Lam's rural hideout. Lam pays equal attention to the performances and staging of the kinetic set pieces. His use of dutch tilts, snatches of slow motion and black and white flashbacks mesh and blend to form a sizzling piece of bloody entertainment. I loved it.

The Adventurers (1995) was a big budgeted film (for Ringo Lam) that spans across three countries. The film begins in Thailand and goes to the United States and Hong Kong. It's also a tale of revenge, a deep rooted one that lasts well over two decades. A young child is the only survivor of a family massacre. His uncle (David Chiang) raises the boy until adulthood (Andy Lau). For many years he has been waiting for the right moment to avenge his family's honor. The kid flies to the United States where he finds his foe. He's strangely attracted to his wife (Rosamund Kwan) and uses her to get back at her sleazy husband. But fate plays a cruel trick upon him because he's also attracted to her daughter. Will she get into his way on his path of vengeance? A nice high gloss action vehicle for Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau, he commanded a high price for his role (one and a half million U.S.D.). It's a hefty sum but it's worth it because he actually acts pretty well in this picture. Ringo Lam has worked miracles with a lot of difficult actors (Jean Claude Van Damme). Instead of mugging and goofing off in front of the camera, Andy shows emotions and depth into his role. The action is well choreographed and the cinematography is top notched.Highly recommended.

Ringo Lam's "The Adventurers" is a star vehicle for Andy Lau, who plays a Cambodian orphan out to get even with the renegade arms merchant who rubbed out his parents. There are lots of explosions, plenty of gunfights and fine production values. The screenplay that Ringo Lam directs is weak on character development, linear structure and conversation. The comic book reality of this movie would have been better if Andy Lau had more personality or screen presence. In his scenes with Rosamund Kwan, she lights up the screen while Andy Lau mostly scowls. There is plenty of action, staged in San Francisco, the Phillipines and maybe Thailand (the police officers in some scenes looked the same as those in "Full Contact," which Lam filmed in Bangkok). For fans of Andy Lau, a top Hong Kong film star and singer, this movie is right up their alley. Ringo Lam complained in an interview after the movie's release that Lau's price tag of over one million dollars (US, not HK dollars) ate up almost half the pictures budget and limited Lam's making this movie. The production values are fine, in spite of Andy Lau's star fee. I saw this movie on a Mei Ah VCD, and the movie is worth looking at as mindless entertainment.