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Plot Outline: Fong Sau-Ching (Yuen Biao) is a royal guard during the Ming dynasty who is given the mission of hunting down a former ally (Fung San, played by Yuen Wah) who has turned to rape and murder. It’s Yuen’s last chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his superiors and it doesn’t take long to track Fung down. Once the two meet they are thrown through time by a Magic Time Wheel where they are knocked from a cliff and frozen in ice. Their bodies are discovered by some scientists in 1989 and are uncovered and eventually thawed out by accident. The two are set free in Hong Kong with neither knowing of the other’s existence. Fung heads back to his life of crime while Fong wanders the streets where he is taken in by a sarcastic prostitute named Polla (Maggie Cheung). The two hit it off, but Polla, seeing how naive Fong is about society decides to make him her man-servant. It doesn’t take time for Fong and Fung to find out that each other is alive, and it doesn’t take long for Fong to discover that Polla is using him. Thus the circle continues. |



The Review |
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If you’re expecting nonstop martial arts action in Iceman Cometh, you might want to check elsewhere. The fight scenes are actually pretty few and far between. A good portion of the fights are either too short or feature large swords and a great deal of wire work. If that’s the sort of thing you’re into then the flick might be just up your alley, but sadly I don’t care much for swordplay, especially not when the swords are huge like in The Highlander. The only two scenes I felt where Yuen got to demonstrate his talent was in the climax which I already spoke of and a fight that takes place about a hundred feet above a river on top of a car. The fighting isn’t the best as you can imagine, not much room to move, but the sheer coolness of what is going on is plenty enough. I felt fairly let down by the fight scenes I must say. Within the beginning I was expecting to see a lot of wirework in the vein of Once Upon A Time in China (which I really wasn’t in the mood for) but thankfully there was a lot more groundbased kung fu that I didn’t expect, but it just didn’t satisfy me. The majority of the film focuses primarily on story and Kung Fu, and although some of these scenes are entirely priceless, I sometimes forgot that I was actually watching a martial arts film. I know it sounds bad as if I hated the film and all, but I’m just trying to stress the point that it might be a bit of a disappointment for those looking for all out action. The film is really more of a comedy that features some martial arts. The comedy is all played with a straight face and Yuen was actually deadly serious throughout, never cracking a joke and always keeping in character. You have to show some respect for that. As I mentioned above though, Maggie Cheung is probably the most charismatic actor in the film, which really surprised me. I think I’m used to seeing her play the tag along girlfriend or in the more serious role. Here she really lets loose. Her character is just wild man, always smoking a cigarette and playing the tough guy while presenting herself in the most flamboyant ways possible. For me she was really the funniest and most entertaining part of the film. Well, that and the fantastic final battle.
The Conclusion |
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