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Eagle Shooting Heroes

Hilarious little slapstick martial arts parody - with a major cast, including Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Joey Wang, Bridget Lin, Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, and Jackie Cheung. Director Wong Kar Wai was shooting the epic and elegiac wuxia classic "Ashes of Time" with all of the big Hong Kong stars listed above when he ran out of money and the producers ordered filming to be halted. The stars had already been paid and were committed to the project, so the director put together another deal with other producers to make a kung-fu action comedy loosely based on a story by classic Louis Cha. He made enough of of this to finish "Ashes…" The sets and costumes are cheezy parodies of the cheap 60s and 70s kung fu quickies - particularly Joey Wang and very gay Leslie Cheung's matching pink and blue suits. The evil queen dresses like a Vegas showgirl. Gender confusion abounds - with Leslie Cheung as the love interest of the Persian prince (Persia?). Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Jackie Cheung beat the crap out of each other for like ten minutes. Leung excels in the physical comedy department. The martial arts action is basically the stars making the moves but seldom hitting each other. When a somersault is required, the stunt double for Leung is obviously a young boy doing it. Joey Wang gets to ham it up at her pouty best, Veronica Yip is terrifically over the top as the evil queen, BUT the very best performance belongs to Carina Lau as a lecherous male martial arts captain. Bullying, self-righteous, cowardly, toadying, lustful, fast-talking - she takes all the standard martial arts sidekick cliches and goes way way over the top in a bravura comedic acting job.