Review: The Last Blood


Pop-star/actor Andy Lau (who is the subject of a funny in-joke here) is a rather mild-mannered Triad member attempting to go on vacation with ballsier girlfriend Ling (May Lo), and boards the same flight as famous monk the Daka Lama. On arrival in Singapore, a bunch of terrorist-types open fire (in a great scene, by the way), shooting both the Lama and Ling. Both need a blood transfusion, and both have a very rare blood type. Cops Alan Tam and Kar-Yan Leung need to track down a possible donor in only 12 hours. The bad guys, however, have already killed two of the possible donors, and the only one left is the delightfully unscrupulous ‘Fatty’ (Eric Tsang), who is being targeted by seemingly a whole army of baddies (Are you still with me?). Lau is hell-bent on saving his girlfriend’s life and goes off on his own, and the cops, who want to save the Lama first, are none too happy about his interference.

 

This 1991 Wong Jing (whose films range from the wildly entertaining “Seventh Curse”, to the truly abysmal Jackie Chan misfire “City Hunter”) action-comedy gets a bit of a bad rap from HK action diehards (and I must admit the alternate title, “Hard Boiled 2” irritates me to no end. This has nothing to do with the John Woo flick, but that’s my only gripe with the film), but I found it to be an exciting, action-packed, funny (in a typically juvenile, Wong Jing kind of way) and wholly enjoyable film. Well-acted, too, with Andy Lau always enjoyable and charismatic, and chubby Eric Tsang stealing the show in essentially a riff on the role Joe Pesci played in “Lethal Weapon 2”.

 

Don’t expect “Hard Boiled” or “The Killer”, and you might just have a whale of a time. The screenplay is by the director, who makes up in zaniness for what he lacks in technical proficiency. A fun, over-the-top B-movie.

 
Rating: B-

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