Movie Review: Badges of Fury/不二神探

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I cringed.

Hell, when I saw the thumbnail for the trailer, I cringed.

I could tell **Badges of Fury/不二神探 was supposed to be a light-hearted parody romp, but there was something about it that grated on me.**

And I admit, it was at least partially the language.

But mostly the mugging.

It’s not news to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that I have my own prejudices when it comes to movies.

I don’t care for a lot of movies that come from Mainland China, for a number of reasons.

One of them has to do with comedy.

I’ve struggled to find the right way of expressing my feelings (and continue to do so).

For me, I often find the humor, or even the comic orientation in Mainland film to be grating.

It strikes me as overly broad, and the excessive mugging just annoys me.

In that trailer, the moments at 0:22 and 1:22 (?) illustrate my point.

I’m not saying they’re bad, just that I don’t like them.

But at least this is a comedy.

Chow Yun Fat’s scene-chewing in Let the Bullets Fly drove me insane (a distance that I admit is easily walkable).

That kind of comedy obviously appeals to people, but I don’t care.

It doesn’t appeal to me, and I bought my ticket.

So going into Badges of Fury/不二神探, I knew (or at least I thought I knew) what I was in for.

My expectations were low (they were not as low as my moral fiber, but the two could yell back and forth).

But I was at the Dynasty, so I was happy.

And Yu Yung Yung was with me, so I was even happier.

My first pleasant surprise was finding out that the film had been dubbed into Cantonese.

It made me happy because then I could at least understand some of it.

And that woman’s outburst sounded very different.

My next surprise was the film itself.

I found that the mugging from the trailer fit much better into the film as a whole than I expected, and I even (dare I say it) enjoyed some of it.

I mean some of the mugging. I enjoyedall of the movie.

Someone is killing a movie starlet (I mean that in career terms, not age)’s fiancés in Hong Kong.

She’s convinced that she’s cursed, because proposing to her has proven fatal for several men.

If nothing else, it is worth it to watch this movie just to see Raymond Lam Fung die. ‘Chok’ deez nuts.

But the police are on the case.

Like a cheap suit.

Jet Li, Zhang Wen, and Michelle Chen (talk about a face for radio) are searching for the killer.

It could be the starlet herself (Liu Shishi).

I thought it was nice to see Liu Yifei’s stunt double get a chance to act.

Or it might be her sister (Ada Liu).

Got milk?

There’s lots of slapstick humor, but it’s presented tautly enough that it never wallows in obviousness.

“There’s a fly on your forehead!”

There’s also some entertaining martial arts (thanks in no small part to choreographer Corey Yuen and actors Collin Chou, Leung Ka Yan, Wu Jing and Leung Siu Lung). 

It’s a bit sad seeing how old Jet Li is, and how much he’s slowed down, but as someone near the same age (and nearly as physically degraded), I can empathize if he takes a back seat to Zhang Wen a lot of the time.

彈出並鎖定.

The subtitles deserve special mention, and had I been able to see who did them, I’d thank them by name (I sat through the end credits, but either I missed them or they weren’t there).

I’d never expect to see the word ‘tuchus’ appear in a subtitle, nor the phrase ‘catty skank’, but I am extremely pleased and grateful that they did.

Overall, this movie was a profoundly pleasant surprise.

The scrīpt by Carbon (!) Cheung was surprisingly entertaining. It was generic and obvious, but that doesn’t mean it was bad.

I was also surprised to find out that this is Wong Tsz-ming’s directorial debut. **Badges of Fury/不二神探  is no Golden Horse contender, but I’ve seen a lot worse from first-time directors.**

The film’s pacing is taut but not rushed, and editor Angie Lam deserves a lot of credit for helping make this film frankly better than it should be.

The laundry list of cameos in this film is nearly exhaustive, but it really added to the enjoyment of watching.

I had gone into this one with my spleen cocked locked and loaded, so to speak.

With silver bullets?

Yet I found myself really enjoying the movie, idiocy and all.

Which is a good thing, because it’s completely idiotic.

But I mean that in the most flattering way possible.

This film is really dumb entertainment, but it works.

In many ways, it has a very nostalgic feel, evoking the Hong Kong cinema of 20 years ago without ever becoming a slavish homage.

Or regurgitation.

Badges of Fury/不二神探 is amusing, it kept my attention (miracle of miracles), and it obviously hit the right marks for the audience, who seemed to find all the jokes funny.

Especially the little kid in front of us who asked his mother why the gweilo always said a bad word when the movie star’s sister appeared on the screen.

God d@mn.

Jet Li’s character is named Wong Fei Hong, and I was surprised to find myself responding positively to the joke instead of getting irritated.

No, I haven’t found Jesus, the Bodhisattva,  or new p*ssy. So I don’t know what the f@#$ it is either.

Thankfully, there was refreshingly little to remind me that this film was financed in China and tailored to fit into that market.

What at first seems an allusion to the supernatural turns out, of course, to just be a meteorological metaphor, and the nationalistic moment near film’s end was delivered, dare I say it, with a very amusing amount of subtlety and wit.

Go see this movie.

It’s silly, harmless, vapid fun, but I found myself smiling at it the whole time, and that’s a rare treat for me these days.