Rating:

3

Year of release: 2006

Genre: comedy

Directors: Gordon Chan, Dante Lam

Action director: Wong Wai-Fai

Producers: Gordon Chan, Catherine Hun, Jimmy Law

Writers: Gordon Chan, Abe Kwong, Lau Ho-Leung

Editor: Azrael Chung

Cinematographer: Tse Chung-To

Music: Tommy Wai

Stars: Ronald Cheng, Lam Tze-Chung, Teresa Fu, Miki Yeung, Ella Koon, Pace Wu, Sammy Hung, Steven Fung, Philip Ng

Rated IIB for language and violence

Movie Review Index / Main Page

Undercover Hidden Dragon

Man, what a trainwreck Undercover Hidden Dragon is. Actually, "trainwreck" is probably too strong of a word, because that might indicate that there was something -- anything -- of interest going on here. While it was obivously produced to capitalize on the success of Ronald Cheng's successful Dragon Loaded films, Undercover Hidden Dragon captures very little of those movies' fun and creativity, resulting in yet another snooze-fest HK film-makers have wafted upon audiences this year.

I'm not going to go into any real detail about the plot, because there really isn't any depth to it. Ronald Cheng plays a bumbling low-level Triad who is spotted by a trio of too young/too cute cops, who think he is really a undercover officer who has lost his memory. In order to get into their (as well as the local dai lo's girl's) pants, he agrees to become a mole. And that's about it. The writers (all three of them!) try to inject some subplots, but nothing gets seen to completion, and as such, everything falls flat as a result. The directors try to make up for this by having all of the actors scream their lines, or when things get really desperate, curse in English. It's stuff like this that gives Hong Kong comedies a bad name with many viewers. Undercover Hidden Dragon is loud, dumb, and just not funny.

There are a couple of bright spots, such as parodies of Masked Rider and Initial D. What there is of the too-brief action sequences is very well-done (though Cheng is quite obivously doubled for most of them). Plus, the females in the film add some nice eye candy. But it felt like a chore getting through Undercover Hidden Dragon, which watching a movie should never be under any circumstances. I know Hong Kong movies will probably never be up to the level of the "golden age" ever again, but surely HK film-makers can come up with something better than this half-ass effort.