Fight Back To School III (1993)

For some reason I'd never felt inclined to pick this up until my last order - I think I remembered people saying it was basically just a retread of FIGHT BACK TO SCHOOL but not as good. Clearly I was mixing it up with Fight Back To School II. For FBTS3, Wong Jing and Stephen Chiau decide to explore new territory - Stephen's cop and his wife Cheung Man return, but this time there is no school in sight! This time Stephen is sent undercover to take the place of a millionaire who was found dead, whom he happens to resemble exactly, and find out who killed him and why. From the start the prime suspect is his wife Anita Mui, here doing a glorious parody of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

The movie is fairly typical Wong Jing turf - lots of parodying of movies both western and eastern, and lots of pretty base humour. It never really takes itself seriously at any point, but bounces around between comedy set-pieces in a good natured way. Stephen gives a great performance as usual but is outshone by Anita Mui, who runs from deliciously sexy to flat out stupid with ease and style. Anthony Wong gives one of his good performances too, and Leung Kar-Yan is excellent as Stephen's superior (sadly dubbed by somebody else though). Kathy Chow has a small role, but looks particularly delicious in it - as does Cheung Man.

There's a couple of dubious moments - notably the obligatory Wong Jing rape joke - but all in all it's a well crafted and entertaining movie. Light years ahead of FBTS2, and a worthy successor to the original despite no actual school appearing in it.