Red Wolf (1995)

Everyone always says "It's Die Hard on a ship", and it is. Not in a bad "oh, they've just ripped off Die Hard" kind of way - doesn't feel like a rip off, just a fairly honest decision to make the same basic movie in a ship-board setting.

Kenny Ho is the ship security officer who ends up alone and in danger when the ship is taken over by thieves after the Uranium in the safe. Christy Chung is the waitress/pick pocket who ends up either helping him or impeding him, depending on the situation. Ngai Sing and Elaine Lui are the bad guys.

It's not a bad movie, but basically feels like "throw-away action movie #14" - just something to pass Yuen Wo-Ping's time, and give some under-utilised fighters some screen time. The plot set-up is pretty perfunctory (it doesn't need much explaining), and after that it's all action/thriller scenes in a Die Hard meets Yuen Wo-Ping style. Less tensely filmed and technically polished than DIE HARD, but more violent & destructive. There's some flashes of nice choreography, but most of it is fairly by the books, and often ruined by ridiculous speed up. Yuen Wo-Ping does fall into that trap from time to time

Christy Chung is quite charismatic - it's hardly noticable that it's not her voice you're hearing. She has some fairly funny scenes. Elaine Lui is the real revelation though - cute, mean, and a great fighter. Wonder why I've never come across her before? Wonder where she is now...

Ngai Sing gets a decent amount of screen time and uses it well. I like him. Kenny Ho is ok, not dazzling.

Basically, Red Wolf is an OK movie, but a strange choice for Hong Kong Legends to give "Platinum" treatment to. What I've seen of the second disc of extras so far has been fairly interesting - a Ngai Sing stunt workshop and half a documentary on HK stuntmen. Both of them tend to focus more on the industry side of stuntmanship than e.g. showing how they do the stunts. Haven't checked the audio commentary, so I can't offer an opinion as to how convincing Christy Chung's orgasm is :D