Gun is Law

cover

Year of release: 1983

Genre: cop drama

Director: Norman Law

Producer: Ng See-Yuen

Writers: Ng See-Yuen, Norman Law, Yip Gaai, Lai Yung, Cheung Gam-Moon, Si Yuen

Stars: Phillip Chan, John Shum, Melvin Wong, Wong Wan-Si, Jeng Kei-Ying, Chow Yun-Gin, Johnny Cheung

Rated OAT I for violence

DVD available for purchase at www.hkflix.com

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Gun is Law  Gun is Law

Gun is Law  Gun is Law

Gun is Law is pretty much like every other Danny Lee cop movie out there... well, except that this one actually doesn't star Danny Lee. Instead, it's Phillip Chan in the lead role. But everything else, right down to the fetishization of Magnum guns, is torn right from the "Lee Sir" playbook.

In the film, Chan plays a hot-headed cop who's more inclined to shoot suspects rather than arresting them. This makes him a favorite of his co-workers, but doesn't sit well with his new bean-counting commander (Melvin Wong). After a botched operation, Chan is transferred to a desk job, which causes him to resign. However, the brother of a man Chan killed during a bank robbery is now set on revenge, and Chan must try to protect his family by himself.

Gun is Law feels like it could have been a much better movie than it turns out to be. Most of the actors do a good job. Even John Shum (who I normally find incredibly annoying) is solid as one of Chan's buddies. There's some decent action sequences, as well as a really good '80's synth-rock score. But there are two stumbling blocks which eventually derail the picture.

The first is the actor that plays Chan's son. Long-time readers of this site know I'm not a big fan of child actors, and it's brats like this that make me feel that way. After hearing him whine, scream, and screech for the dozenth time, I was rooting for the tyke to be taken out in an extremely painful way. Seriously, folks -- any scenes that this moppet is involved in are prime examples of how not to generate sympathy from your viewer.

Secondly, and most damningly, Gun is Law looks like it was shot with a budget of about seventy-five cents. Of course, there's not wrong with low-budget film-making in and of itself, but it appears that the production couldn't even afford basic stuff like lights.

Many scenes (a lot of which are actually important to the story) are so dark that it's near impossible to tell what's going on. When you combine that with craptastic subtitles on the Mei Ah release that often run off the frame, Gun is Law ends up being just another below-average Hong Kong cops and robbers flick.

RATING: 4