Profile in Anger is a very apt title for this 1984 actioner helmed by and starring old-school favorite "Beardy" Leung Kar-Yan. After a slow first act, the claret begins flowing out at a rate fast enough to fill up several oversized Malibu pools. While there really isn't much of a story to speak of presented here, if you're a fan of the good old-fashioned ultra-violence, you're going to find a lot to enjoy with this film.

Beardy plays Chun, a famous architect and former race car driver who meets up with an old friend, Wong (Damian Lau), on the eve to his marriage to the lovely Hydi (Pat Ha). Wong isn't in town to attend the wedding, though. He's looking to get revenge on a corrupt jewel dealer named Wai (Chang Yi) that bankrupted his father. Wong's plan falls apart, which leads to Wai sending a pair of hitmen (Michael Chan and Phillip Ko) to exact retribution. Of course, you know what happens next: Beardy puts down his protractor and picks up his fists of fury, much to the delight of the audience.

While Profile in Anger's plot is standard stuff, the route to resolution has a nice tinge of goofiness, which sets this movie apart from many other similar tales of revenge. During his journey, Beardy encounters everything from homosexual punks to pirate bikers complete with parrots on their shoulders. He must have also encountered some errant razors, because his trademark facial hair is a different length from scene to scene. Actually, that lack of continuity was probably due to the fact that this film took two years to complete because of problems with financing from the Golden Harvest studio.

Despite the obvious low budget and slipshod nature of the production, Profile in Anger has some flashes of brilliance in segements, such as the scene where Michael Chan stalks Pat Ha through her house, which is shot and edited to such quality that one might be expecting a Hitchcok-style suspense-filled turn to the proceedings. Some might be disappointed that Leung Kar-Yan didn't stick with this feeling and instead literally went straight for the jugular and cranked up the blood quotient, but I would suspect many viewers who have enjoyed some of Beardy's other 80's era work such as Hong Kong Godfather will feel right at home here.

RATING: 7