True Colours (1986)

Director: Kirk Wong

Writer: Raymond Wong

Producer: Raymond Wong

Cast: Ti Lung, Raymond Wong, Brigitte Lin

Running Time: 83 min.

Plot: Lung (Ti Lung) and Wong (Raymond Wong) are street punks in 1955 Hong Kong. When Lung is forced to leave after an incident during a brawl he returns 5 years later to find things have drastically changed. Wong has now cleaned up his act and become a priest and Lung's girlfriend May (Brigitte Lin) has married the biggest triad boss in Hong Kong.

Availability: This title is available at HKflix.com

SLAXOR'S REVIEW: What first attracted me to this movie was the presence of Ti Lung who is one of my favorite HK actors, and Brigitte Lin my favorite HK actress. The movie itself is your typical 80's heroic bloodshed movie obviously made to cash in on the success of, or is at least inspired by, "A Better Tomorrow", which also featured this film's star Ti Lung.

It starts well with Lung and Wong putting on the wooden armor that the Chinese used to use in battle to protect themselves from swords. They take their machetes and are off to fight some guys in what seems to be an abandoned office building. The fighting that ensues is some good old brawling with machetes. Not Sammo Hung calibur choreography, but good enough to satisfy your tastes if your not an elitist or someone who doesn't mind some good old ass-kicking. One really stupid element of this fight scene is when they wind up in a room with garbage bags hanging from the ceiling filled with blood!! Which of course they slice with their machetes so they can become covered with blood. What company hangs blood from the ceiling in garbage bags? Their quality control was obviously why this company went out of business. ;)

The cops finally arrive and during Lung and Wong's escape one of the poor cops runs in to Lung's machete!! Lung now has to flee the country but not Wong because killing a cop warrants this but not killing a bunch of thugs. Yea... Wong and Lung's girlfriend, May, say their goodbyes to Lung and he gets on a ferry and flees Hong Kong.

Five years later, Lung returns to find Wong now a priest in charge of an orphanage of punks, which he has about 0 control of over. Lung, however, is still a badass and gets off to a bad start with the top punk of the orphanage (James), until he saves James from a beat down later on that night. Now James, and the rest of the orphanage, idolize Lung and consider him their hero. Lung gets a job in a restaurant and runs into his old girlfriend, May, who's been stood up by her triad boss husband. He discovers that May is very unhappy with her marriage and would go back with Lung in a heartbeat if her husband wasn't the most ruthless Triad boss in HK. Lung eventually gets May back only to tragically lose her again. Wong gets fed up and ditches his priestly attire for his old "A Better Tomorrow" Chow Yun Fat trench coat but winds up still being a gutless bastard. Thankfully, Lung saves the day, once again wielding double pistols Chow Yun Fat style, but without any of the style.

Ti Lung is surely the bright spot of this movie, though. I've always felt he has a natural charisma that almost forces you to like him and feel bad for him when he's down on his luck. This is a decent outing for Lung but if you really want to see him flex his acting chops I suggest seeking out some of his older swordplay Shaw Bros. movies like "The Magic Blade" and "Avenging Eagle" or his more modern stuff like "Drunken Master 2" and "A Better Tomorrow".

Brigitte Lin looks good as always, but I like her more mature look of the early nineties in movies like "Swordsmen 2" and "Bride with White Hair" as opposed to the way she looked in the eighties movies like "Police Story", "Peking Opera Blues" and this movie. In True Colours she plays your clich*d damsel in distress and, other then making me extremely jealous of Ti Lung by making out with him in a couple of scenes, she does little to further my appreciation of her acting talent.

The lead orphan James drags this movie down a notch. I checked the HKMDB and it shows that he only made one movie after this one, which was his first. Not surprising, since the guy's acting range consists of really angry and...really angry. Raymond Wong provides some good acting at times and some of the worst at other times. He takes his portrayal of a badass so over-the-top in the beginning that you can only laugh. He is much more fit in the priest role he adapts later in the film.

I may sound like I didn't enjoy this movie, but in fact I did. Perhaps if they would have toned down some of the drama and added some of the usual out-of-place HK comedy I would have gotten more enjoyment out of it. The over emphasis on drama provides unintentional comedy instead of the forced and out-of-place kind we've all come to love in HK cinema. Overall, I would call this movie a letdown but since no one has ever really talked about it and there's absolutely no hype I went in to it with my expectations as low as possible and as a result I got some enjoyment out of it.

Bottom Line: If you don't like cheesy HK movies from the 80s made to cash in on another movie's success, stay away.

SLAXOR'S RATING: 5/10