Rating:

4

Year of release: 1993

Genre: action/comedy

Director: Wong Jing

Action directors: Ching Siu-Tung, Dion Lam, Ma Yuk-Sing

Producer: John Higgins

Writer: Wong Jing

Cinematography: Andrew Lau

Music: Marco Wan, Lee Hon Gam

Editor: Poon Hung

Stars: Andy Lau, Ekin Cheng, Jacky Cheung, Simon Yam, Chingmy Yau, Dicky Cheung, Andy Hui, Charlie Yeung, Winnie Lau, Richard Ng, Aaron Kwok, Billy Chow, Ken Lo

Rated II for violence and crude humor

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Future Cops

As someone who is both a video game fan and one of the biggest defenders of Wong Jing's output, it pains me to say this. For lack of more colorful language, Future Cops sucks. It's certainly not the worst production to come out of Hong Kong, especially during this period, when HK film-makers were cranking out more product than they knew what to do with, which resulted in an awful lot of stinkers. But given the cast and crew that worked on this movie, the end result is pretty disappointing to say the least.

Future Cops' plot is wafer-thin, even by Wong Jing's "flying paper" standards. Basically, during the early 1990's, the game Street Fighter II was a worldwide phenomenon. Wong Jing is the type of guy who is always quick to hitch his horse to the fastest cart, and so he set about to make a SF2 movie. The problem is that he didn't actually pay for the rights to use the characters from the game, so we get some of Hong Kong's biggest stars playing knock-offs. And instead of a world martial arts tournament like in the game, Future Cops has a group of (you guessed it) "future cops" going back in time to save a loser (played by Dicky Cheung) who will eventually become a judge who convicts the future's top criminal (Ken Lo doing his best impersonation of M. Bison).

And that's about it. Certainly, Wong Jing's movies aren't known for their high drama or deep plots (though he has proven capable of that with such films as Colour of the Truth) but he usually keeps things moving along quickly enough so that the viewer doesn't have the time to dwell on the production's shortcomings. Future Cops' biggest problem is that a ton of time is wasted in dumb comedic segments. A good number of the jokes are actually initally funny, but Wong strings them on far too long, and the resulting punchlines aren't worth the effort. Also, Wong doesn't use the characters to their potential. This was probably because he was trying to avoid a lawsuit, but Street Fighter fans hoping to see some of the classic battles from the game re-enacted will be disappointed, as the match-ups and special moves are given only a relatively small amount of screen time, as Wong quickly goes on to the next poop or vibrator joke.

There are a couple of good parts in Future Cops, mostly revolving around Chingmy Yau, who is always easy on the eyes and looks quite nice in her Chun Li outfit. Some of the fights, as helmed by seasoned vet Ching Siu-Tung, are actually quite good. But, ultimately, Future Cops represents why many HK film fans hate Wong Jing's output. It was obviously rushed through to make a quick buck, depending more on star power and eye candy, rather than actual film-making, to entertain the viewer.