SYNOPSIS:
Street
smart cops Curry and Pepper use unconventional police tactics
to catch thieves. When their superior lets TV reporter Joey
Law to follow them on duty while doing a segment, they both
fell head over heels for her! But romance takes a back seat
when Curry and Pepper must hunt down a group of vicious arms
dealers and its trigger-happy leader.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Comedy King Stephen Chow’s career was at his
peak in the early nineties. During those days where cineplex
was non-existent, those hand-drawn posters featuring his movies
will be plastered at the cinema almost every quarterly of
the year. "Curry & Pepper" was made during that
era, 1990 to be exact, way back before Michael Bay hit the
jackpot with "Bad Boys".
Heavenly
King Jacky Cheung and Stephen Chow pair up for the first and
probably the last time to play Curry & Pepper respectively,
two cop buddies who solve crimes by using the least orthodox
ways ever imagined. The first 30 minutes was a setup for the
audience to get to know our main protagonists. The next 30
minutes a female lead was introduced to stir up the friendship
and of course the last 30 minutes is a big-bang boom finale
before we call it a day.
This
is not to say that "Curry & Pepper" is a run-out-of-mill
buddy cop action flick, in fact it’s refreshing to see
a new pair up with such amazing chemistry. Although Chow’s
brand of ‘mo-lei-tau’ humour is slightly under
used here, Cheung on the other hand bathers easily with him
scenes after scenes. Perhaps this explains the lacking in
Chow’s brand of humour (you don’t want to overshadow
your partner don’t you?) but the energy level is never
dampened. What really drags the whole plot and action bits
is the unnecessary inclusion of the female lead, Joey Law
(play by Eurasian beauty Ann Bridgewater, just think of her
as an early version of Maggie Q), a female news reporter who
gets into a love triangle relationship with Curry & Pepper.
I guess the screenwriter is trying to give the buddy flick
a love angle but it’s haphazardly and clumsily handled
in the end so what gives? To tell the truth, even the whole
arms smuggling subplot was not properly accounted.
It’s
sad that Ko wasn’t able to duplicate his directorial
success after "Curry & Pepper". The late Blackie
Ko seems to be more at ease here coordinating the action sets.
Watch out for a crazy shootout in a supermart, a car chase
sequence on a busy street and our two leads swinging across
buildings using electrical cables. The stunt coordinator turns
director also turns in a menacing performance as a cold-blooded
killer. The bloody climatic which took place on a cruise ship
will have you hankering for more.
Shot
by Andrew Lau of "Infernal Affairs" (he turns in
a laughable cameo as a CID officer and acclaimed director
Peter Chan cameo as a passerby as well), "Curry &
Pepper" will go down in HK cinematic history as a wacky,
enjoyable buddy cop flick. Action, comedy, romance, you can
have everything in a HK movie. Never mind the less than satisfying
plotting, so long we have "Lethal Weapon", "Tango
& Cash", "Bad Boys" and yes, "Curry
& Pepper" to save the day.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
This DVD comes with the original Cantonese audio, the dubbed
Mandarin track and also an English track to serve our Western
counterparts. Despite the audio being out-of-sync at times,
it doesn’t really mar the enjoyment much. To add on
to the amusement, did I mention the grammatically wrong English
subtitles? The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack seems at times
too loud for comfort and overly soft if you tune it lower.
Well, a common problem with those early HK productions.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
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