Pi li sha shou (1980) User Reviews

A crime lord's bodyguard tries to leave his past life behind.

[hottentot-1 · 6/10 · 8 June 2007]

This is one of Chan Wai Man's roles where he's a good guy. Once you sort out the badly given clues, the basic plot is that he was once the bodyguard of a crime lord. The best of the best. He was enticed into the fold by the crime lord's "moll", then discovers that she's just one of the many women the guy has frolicking around. He meets a "good girl," vows to go straight and makes good on his word. Evidently he disappears to live a different life with her. Years later, his whereabouts are discovered by two of the boss's thugs. The boss has always resented his leaving and sets up a murder to frame Chan. With the help of an old friend, and a jealous woman, Chan manages to clear his name and save his wife & child who had been kidnapped to coerce him into helping with a bank job. I have the dubbed version, which as usual is badly done. It's an interesting story idea; if you can put up with the flashbacks done with no warning (so you're going, "huh?"), it's not that bad. I would give this a 5, but since it was nice to see Chan in a good guy role, I'll up it to a 6.

Gritty contemporary Hong Kong kung fu

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 25 February 2017]

THE INVINCIBLE KILLER is a surprisingly gritty contemporary Hong Kong thriller with plenty of martial arts to see it through. The lead role is taken by none other than Chan Wai-Man, the real life Triad who always brought a level of impassive presence to his film roles, whether he played the hero or villain. Here, he's a bodyguard and subsequently a lackey for the boss of a big criminal organisation.

Wai-Man tires of his criminal lifestyle and tries to go straight, but the crime boss has other ideas. What follows is a film chock full of violent combat scenes, peripheral characters being abused and killed, and one random, extended sex scene included to pad out no less than ten minutes of the running time. Wai-Man's character is a real bad ass here and his brand of fighting fits the movie's gritty atmosphere very well.