Movie	Extras
Audio	Video

Universe Laser DVD.  Region 0.  For those who want it, the review of the first movie is here.

Movie
What’s with the neon lights!  This isn’t the 1980s anymore, why put the viewers through all of that?  Whether you consider this movie an actual part of the ‘Aces Go Places’ series is your choice, but it certainly follows it predecessors’ style pretty closely.  True to the series, this movie has the theme song, the silly love song montage, cameos, a plot that has more tangents than forward motion, plenty of action and decidedly non-PC humour.

This time the plot centers on the notion that Alan Tam (who pokes fun at himself a few times in the movie) having to kill Christy Chung (‘Red Wolf’) because it’s his dead father’s last wish.  Now, the movie never really seems to care about that little caveat after the two meet each other.  There’s some little goofing off about that near the beginning, but once they get to talking that movie-starter seems to be of little importance.  They play roles that anybody else could play, though, so it’s nothing amazing to watch.  Their characters are the weak link in the movie.

Once the movie starts, the cameos come, and it’s nice to see them.  None of them even come close to topping the one ‘Aces Go Places 4’, but it’s very nice to see all the actors.  Chin Siu-ho (‘Fist of Legend’), Billy Chow (‘Pedicab Driver’), Ngai Sing (‘My Father is a Hero’) and Raymond Wong appear in this movie, among a few others.  Of the other non-cameo roles, it’s always fun to see Francis Ng chewing up the scenery.  He’s played just about every single type of role in evey single type of film, and he’s always fun to watch.  In here, he plays a cross between the characters he’s played in ‘Full Contact’ and ‘Heroic Duo’.  Tony Leung is also pretty nice as the Drunken Shooter, which sort of reminds me of the Drunken Fighter in ‘Last Hurrah for Chivalry’ (here).

Director/action director Chin Kar-lok (brother of Chin Siu-ho, star of ‘Operation Scorpio’ (here)) has a nice time moving things around.  The action is nice, but nothing out of the ordinary.  It’s fun but Mrs. Chung seems to be letting the stuntmen do all the work.  She hits them and they fly off in interestind directions.  The stunts are neither insane or boring.  The action moves the flick along in a pretty quick way.  You’re never bored.

If you want to compare to the earlier movies, I suppose Tony Leung would be the Karl Maka (‘Knockabout’ (here)) role, although not as goofy.  Christy Chung would be Sam Hui, which leaves Alan Tam playing the Sylvia Chang role (in the later movies, not the first one).  I do have to say that Mr. Tam plays the love-struck idiot, not Mrs. Chung.

The biggest flaw is probably the comedy.  It’s silly for being silly’s sake in some instances, but it’s part of Hong Kong comedies’ tradition of doing anything for a laugh.  Sometimes it works, but most of the time it’s just light-hearted.  I think most people would be surprised at some of the ‘funny’ stuff going on, given how sterile Hollywood comedies are.  This movie believes anything can be funny.

I didn’t think the movie would be this enjoyable, to tell you the truth.  Without Sam Hui and Karl Maka, what’s an ‘Aces Go Places’ movie, after all?  This is a nice ‘entry’, although taking out the theme song and musical cues from the series, this could be just any other old romantic comedy.  It’s nice, but it’s probably the weakest in all the series.  It’s 92 minutes long, and it’s fun to watch for those minutes, but I probably won’t remember it so much in a month.

Stars’ Files
Actors Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Alan Tam, Christy Chung, Francis Ng and adirector Chin Kar-lok get biographies and filmographies.  If the movie they were in won awards, that information is conveyed to you to.  Just remember that it’s not the actor’s awards showing, it’s the awards the movie won.  Imagine my surprise at seeing ‘Best Actress winner’ in Tony Leung’s info.  By the way, there’s a mistake and it’s a bit strange.  The DVD came out in 2003, but ‘2046’ is included in Tony Leung’s filmography for 2000.  By 2003, everybody knew ‘2046’ hadn’t come out yet, so it’s a bit strange to have that mistake.

Trailer
This is about 2 minutes and 40 seconds long.  It’s essentially a karaoke trailer.  It’s the ‘Aces’ song over the trailer with the lyrics at the bottom.  It’s a very interesting trailer, though.  The movie takes a long of tangents, so it’s funny to watch all the scattered parts of the movie into a trailer.  It would definitely make me want to see the movie.

Audio
I find it very, very strange that, given the year of the DVD’s release (and the year of the movie’s release, I suppose) that the two (Cantonese and Mandarin) audio tracks are in mono.  Not even 2.0 mono, mind you, but 1.0.  As such, the track is far from being great.  It’s thin and missing some serious oomph.  The song at the beginning sounds a little bit screechy, but luckily that doesn’t happen for the rest of the movie.  You can hear the dialogue clearly, as well as the other sound elements.  It’s okay but it’s still a mono tracks.

Video
1.77:1 letterbox.  The picture isn’t all that hot.  It’s strange for the picture not to be anamorphic, for the time the DVD was released.  The picture is a bit soft overall, like it’s been mastered from a good VHS copy instead of film.  The print has some problems, like specks, but it’s nothing that should distract you.  The colours are okay, and the contrast is nice, but like I said, it’s soft.  The IVL DVDs have a better picture, oddly enough, given their age.

23/5/2005