Full Contact

Adventure, Action, Martial Arts

Yun-Fat Chow
Simon Yam	Judge
Chow Yun-Fat	Jeff
Ann Bridgewater	Mona
Bonnie Fu	Virgin
Anthony Wong	Sam
Chris Lee	Chung
Frankie Chin	Deano
Nam Yin
Anthony Wong Chau-Sang

Director	Ringo Lam
Producer	Ringo Lam
Writer	Nam Yin

A rather mean-spirited vehicle for the normally empathetic Chow Yun-fat, with a brass-knuckle plot that recalls the Crook's Revenge story line of Payback and its source movie, Point Blank. Chow is Joe (just plain Joe), a tattooed, crew-cut professional thief who chews Clint Eastwood's old stogies, packs a sawed-off shotgun, and roars around on a chopped Harley. Betrayed and left for dead by turncoat pal Anthony Wong (the head gunrunner in John Woo's Hard Boiled), he returns several months later, in a really bad mood, to retrieve his share of the swag. The rabbit-punch aesthetic of director Ringo Lam is certainly compelling, and there are genuine innovations in the depiction of violence--like a shooting filmed from the bullet's point of view. The Asian-American actress Ann Bridgewater swivels her way through a couple of hot dance numbers as Joe's stripper girlfriend. --David Chute