SPL 1: Sha Po Lang (2005)

"You don't have anyone to fight with anymore"

In SPL: Sha Po Lang aka Kill Zone it didn’t matter what their star was everyone suffered painfully. Those three troubling stars---power, destruction, lust---there was very little lust but an awful lot of destruction for the cops and robbers in Hong Kong on a fateful Father’s Day.

Inspector Chan is aboard a vehicle with a witness and his family. The vehicle is attacked and the witness is killed leaving a young daughter behind. With no witness, the notorious criminal Wong Po is released from jail. When the surgeon removes a large shard of glass from Chan’s head, he discovers a tumor. Chan adopts the witness’ daughter and spends the next three years with his team trying to bring down Wong Po. As the clock ticks down on his life, Chan prepares to retire. The conscientious Inspector Ma comes on board to take his place. It doesn’t take long for Ma to realize that Wong Po isn’t the only one engaging in illegal activities.

Director Wilson Yip and fight choreographer Donnie Yen attempted to turn back the clock in this Triad film by using a minimum of wires and undercranking. With the casting of Donnie, Sammo Hung, and Wu Jing, the expectation was for spectacular fights. There were a couple of small skirmishes near the beginning, but you will have to wait until the last twenty minutes or so to be rewarded for sitting through the corruption, murders, and hand wringing on Father’s Day. The fight between Donnie Yen and Wu Jing was unbelievably fast and vicious. The last fight on the docket was Donnie vs Sammo. This fight included more grappling and was brutal and punishing. Donnie may have been 42 but Sammo was 53 and showed he could still bring it! Donnie’s Inspector Ma learned why one of the main rules in fighting is---Never turn your back on your enemy! Another character learned the tsunami lesson, if all the bad guys are running away it means there is either a Balrog loose from Middle Earth or a very scary bad guy is headed your way. Run!

Most of the action took place on Father’s Day prior to 1997. As a father or child, every character had an issue. The story was melodramatic, nihilistic, and just a big Debbie Downer. The acting was excellent for the most part. Simon Yam made a great weary Inspector Chan. Sammo brought a bit of humanity as a father and husband to his ruthless Triad boss. He also didn’t overact and make the character cartoonish as so often happens with martial arts villains. Donnie played low key as he often did, turning on the energy when the fights began.

Sha Po Lang wasn’t a great movie and the script felt like a retread of better crime films. Infernal Affairs it wasn’t. The saving grace was that the final two fights were memorable, enough to bump my rating up. There’s an old saying that “crime doesn’t pay” but it does pay back. Character after character was sliced to bits. I had to watch through my fingers on a couple of fights. Everyone seemed to be in the Kill Zone.

5 March 2024

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