"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Above the Law (not the Seagal one)

ABOVE THE LAW (1986) (a.k.a. RIGHTING WRONGS) really is about the law. It begins with Yuen Biao after graduating from law school. A group of conspirators, including one with a gun tucked behind an accordion, try to assassinate his professor. The shit goes down just as he’s saying his goodbyes and the prof is giving him a law book as a gift. In the chaos the book goes flying in the air, is shot through with holes, and then is stepped on by panicking witnesses. I don’t know why but I almost feel like that could symbolize something. Probly not.

Since the book is wounded he doesn’t have to handle this by the book, and he gets involved in an awesome car chase with the assassin and then shoots the guy’s car and makes it explode into flames. Thus begins the career of a lawyer vigilante. In the court room he prosecutes criminals, in his spare time he sneaks around and kills the people the law can’t touch. One might argue that he believes he is above the law. In his defense the Steven Seagal movie of the same title didn’t exist yet so he didn’t know that nobody is above the law.

One person that did already know that is the white lady police inspector played by Cynthia Rothrock. And man am I glad I saw this because I had no idea how little justice those CHINA O’BRIEN movies do to her talents. Yeah, I mean you could tell she could fight but in this movie she moves faster, she does way more, her kicks look more powerful. In her first scene she arrests 4 men by tangling them all together using one pair of handcuffs and a chair. She seems way tougher, like a whole different person. It probly doesn’t hurt that she’s dubbed with a deeper voice than her real one, like Jet Li used to be.

She also gets to fight a fellow female martial artist in a long fight involving a chase, high jumps, and a chain. It happens in a mall, but I won’t consider that a sexist stereotype about shopping, since many great non-gender-specific movie scenes have happened in malls, from DAWN OF THE DEAD to POLICE STORY.

The fights and stunts in this movie are all great, like Jackie Chan stunt team style choreography, but without all the jokes. For example there’s the scene where Biao is attacked in a parking lot. He jumps over a moving car, jumps over a parked car as another car jumps over it, ducks between two cars crashing headfirst into each other, then hangs beneath them as they continue to drive, does gymnastics from an overhead pipe, kicks through windshields, beats the guys up even though he’s outnumbered and they have a baseball bat. The only thing that could possibly improve this scene would be if he did it all while wearing his lawyer wig.

Biao and Rothrock meet up when she follows him to the mansion of a defendant he has on trial. He gets there right after somebody’s murdered him with an icepick, so Rothrock thinks he did it. Sure, he’s innocent, but in my opinion he shouldn’t get on his high horse about it becauseI believe he was there to murder the guy himself. He was framed for a crime he was about to commit. The good guy is doing the same thing as the bad guy but we’re supposed to root for the good guy. Oh well, at least we know Rothrock is clean.

Our two heroes end up having a furniture smashing, vase throwing brawl. He kicks the dead body on top of her and she double kicks it back off of herself. Just no respect for preserving the crime scene, you know?

As the story’s coming to a climax the two law-abovers battle it out in a small airplane hangar. It would be a shame if this didn’t lead to some airplane stunts, but having watched so many American action movies where they set up something great and then act like they had no idea that’s what you might expect I’m always kind of ready to be disappointed. No worries here. The guy tries to escape in a small plane and Yuen ends up finding a rope to hang off of. So we get stunts with real people hanging off a real plane and then a kung fu fight inside it. One rumor says that Sammo Hung directed this part. I don’t know but whoever did it if I wore a hat I would take it off and put my hand over my heart.

The tone of the movie is very fun, but it gets brutal at times. There are some unexpectedly vicious things that happen, including to the characters you like. The ending SPOILER is surprisingly grim. It seems it’s gonna stretch believability to have him survive a skydive without a chute by landing in water… but then no, not exactly. Whoops. Apparently there are alternate endings where he and Rothrock survive… but he goes to prison for what he’s done. So there’s different versions where you get kicked in the balls in different ways. It’s like that CLUE movie.

The director is Biao’s Peking Opera School chum Corey Yuen (NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER, FONG SAI YUK, MY FATHER IS A HERO, THE TRANSPORTER). Apparently Yuen Biao, Mang Hoi and Tsui Hark may have also directed some of the action. And Sammo Hung may have directed the climactic airplane fight. Well, they all did a good job then. Other than EASTERN CONDORS this is the best martial arts type action movie I’ve seen in a while.


thanks to @colonelmortimer for insisting I watch this

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012 at 12:59 am and is filed under Action, Martial Arts, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

8 Responses to “Above the Law (not the Seagal one)”

  1. I saw a lot of Hong Kong movies on VHS in the 80’s, and it actually took me a while before I understood that I’ve seen this movie. I’ve always been a big fan of Yuen Biao and I think that he’s a better screen fighter than both Jackie and Sammo (as seen in Dragons Forever).

  2. Brilliant review, Vern. Your astute analysis of the metaphorical rule book and the timeline of when Seagal established the law above which no one is, MWUAH! (That’s my hifalutin tastemaker kiss.)

    So glad to see you getting into more Hong Kong stuff. This is Biao’s best and I always wished more of his movies showcased this stuff. That way we could have three Jackie Chans (including Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan.) But at least theres this.

    Anyone seen A KID FROM TIBET? saw some DVD interview where’s Biao said a he felt that movie let him fight the best. Guess I should see that.

    Also love that genre of ’80s hong kong cop movies, all the IN THE LINE OF DUTYs. Basically all the same generic, but it’s a good formula.

  3. Yeah, I like this movie alot especially since everybody who thinks themselves above the law dies.
    Also,if you want to scare people away from witness protection, this is a good one.

  4. Thank you for reviewing this one Vern. I have been wanting to see it for a while now, but to do so would mean purchasing an import Blu-Ray for a movie I have not seen yet and they are not cheap. However, the glowing review from Vern and the praise from you 3 established HK film aficionados in this talkback only confirm what my gut was telling me the entire time, that I need to get my hands on this movie ASAP.

    I have said it a number of times on this site, but I really dig Yuen Biao. He really should be a bigger star. I think Biao is a more subtle and versatile actor than Jackie Chan, and he is capable delivering the same mix of stunt work, acrobatics and martial arts Chan is known for as well. I not saying he is better than Chan I am just trying to illustrate that it is too bad his career has not been more comparable to Chan’s because his skill set is.

    Fred, I will have to check out A KID FORM TIBET as well.

    I am excited to see what HK film Vern will review next. MILLIONAIRE’S EXPRESS would be a great follow up.

  5. The Original... Paul

    July 25th, 2012 at 9:14 am

    Dayum, I gotta check this one out. The “China O’ Brien” movies didn’t enthrall me, but this sounds like it could be a blast. I’d definitely like to see Cynthia Rothrock in a part that shows why she was once considered a rising action star, because I’m pretty damn sure China O’ Brien didn’t do it.

    Also very good review Vern. Definitely feel as though I’ve got a good sense of what the movie is like.

  6. Rothrock was always better (and cuter) in her HK work than in her American movies. I particularly liked her in NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER 2: RAGING THUNDER, where she gets to fly a helicopter and fight a giant Russian with an obvious German accent.

    Also, any of you guys ever see AMERICAN TIGERS? It’s a cheapjack action flick from 1996 that’s got the basic DIRTY DOZEN plot (although the title links it closer to EASTERN CONDORS) about some cons getting trained to go on a suicide mission. It’s a kung fu movie, so rather than getting trained in weapons, infiltration, or demolition, they spend most of their time in the ring, practicing their roundhouse kicks. The reason I bring it up is because Rothrock has a cameo in the middle of the movie…as herself. Apparently, the Sergeant-Major in charge of the mission is old friends with her, so he calls her in to train his guys and insert a little sex appeal into what is otherwise an unrepentant sausagefest. I like the idea of the army saying, “Only five time undefeated World Karate Champion in Forms & Weapons/straight-to-video star Cynthia Rothrock can teach these men the skills they need to survive a gunfight.” I guess maybe Gary Daniels was busy or something.

  7. You should check Millionaires Express too, although its a bit more comedy the action is awesome.

  8. It took me a year and a half but I finally got around to seeing this one and it was well worth the wait. I agree this film has excellent stunts and fight scenes that are on par with some of the best of Chan’s filmography but with out the comedic beats. It does seem like this film is riffing on DIRTY HARRY. Biao, is sort of like the lawyer version of Inspector Callahan, he even has the same gun. However, the difference is Biao prefers to use his fists and feet instead of his piece.

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