The Enforcer (1995)

"Kung Wei" (Jet Li) is a Chinese undercover cop who has an adoring son named "Ku Kung" (Mo Tse) and a very ill wife but rather than being able to take care of her he is sent against his wishes to Hong Kong to infiltrate a gang of smugglers led by a notorious criminal by the name of "Po Kwang" (Rongguang Yu). Naturally, in order to join the gang he has to convince everyone that he is a criminal and even his son and wife cannot know the truth. Neither can the police in Hong Kong who have assigned a female detective named "Inspector Fong" (Anita Mui) to apprehend him. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film contains quite a bit of action, drama and comedy. Unfortunately, the sheer quantity of these three elements caused the movie to seem quite uneven. Throw in an overabundance of martial arts and the accompanying preposterous stunts and the result is a movie lacking coherence and realism. No doubt some viewers will really like this movie simply for the action it provides and quite frankly it wasn't that bad. However, all things considered I can only rate it as about average. No more and no less.

Review: I quite enjoyed this movie. I really liked the little boy, who played Jet Li's son and there chemistry and fighting skills was a joy to watch. The storyline was well put together and Jet Li proved that he can act as well as kick butt. Basically, Jet Li plays an undercover cop, trying to take down a crime boss but while he's on the job his wife dies and his son goes to live with a cop whose trying to work out Jet Li's true identity. The fighting scenes were quite good, especially when his son is using his martial arts skills to help take down the baddies and the showdown at the end was worth waiting for. In all, it's an entertaining film with enough material to keep you interested throughout. Enjoyable!Round-Up: This film also has intense drama and you feel for Jet Li who can't reveal his undercover status to his family. After earning the trust from the baddies, he's unable to go back home because it might break his cover so his only communication with his loved ones is through a pager and phone calls to his son. I was really impressed with his sons acting skills and he really did show true emotion for such a young boy. The director didn't go overboard with the string action so the fight scenes looked realistic and well choreographed. Anyway, if your into your martial arts movies, this is definitely worth a watch.Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: HK$15.5millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their Jet Li movies about a undercover cop fighting against a crime boss, with the help of his young son. 6/10

(Sorry, a few spoilers here!)The Enforcer is a surprisingly great movie, esp. by Hong Kong standards. It deals with Jet Li being a deep undercover police-man from Beijing, who despite a sick wife and a son that needs him keeps being sent on long undercover missions. Here, he's sent to Hong Kong to infiltrate a crime syndicate. While helping them, he is caught on a photo by the Hong Kong police who doesn't know him, and Anita Mui, a highly placed Hong Kong police lieutenant, goes to Beijing to find out who he is. She finds his wife and son, and realizes that the crook she came to find may not in fact be a crook. Soon, the wife gets sicker, and eventually dies. The lieutenant then takes care of the son, and they go to Hong Kong to find the undercover cop. That's just half the movie. The other half involves the kid being in danger and even being beaten by his dad because the father has to act coldblooded in front of the mafia guys. Then there's some very good chemistry between Jet Li and Anita Mui's characters, and the final battle with the bad guys is good and rewarding.All in all, this movie is told incredibly well, and everything in it rings true and is very, very moving. Great story, very good acting, lots of cool kung fu (also from surprisingly supple Anita Mui!), *and* lots of great action scenes in general. Never a dull moment.The only thing wrong with the movie is that we're never really told who Jet Li's character really is. We know he's a good guy, and that he works for a police chief, but this chief denies knowing him as anything other than a crook, even when the Hong Kong police lieutenant shows up to inquire about him. But this is a minor thing that I am more than willing to ignore. This is a very satisfying movie in all ways.9 out of 10.

Wei Kung is a husband and a father but also an undercover cop. Leaving his sick wife in the care of his young son, Wei takes an undercover assignment to use small-time criminal G-Dog to get close to Po Kwong and bring down his gang. Forced to take part in a job to win the gang's trust brings Wei to the attention of Inspector Anna Fong, who goes after him even though she suspects there is more to him than just a criminal. Wei makes progress in the gang, but changes in his family situation see his son, Johnny, put in danger.As Jet Li's fame grew he started doing more films with modern heroes as opposed to those of Once Upon A Time In China, Fist of Legend, Twin Warriors etc and this film is one of those. As is too often the case with action movies all over the world, the plot is pretty weak with some plot twists being poorly delivered devices just to get the characters where they need to be; certainly anyone looking for strong characters or sensitive writing will be left wondering why they bothered, but then this is an action movie so why be surprised? The plot contrives to bring Anna Fong into the film in place of Wei's wife and it feels cruel and cold the way it is done; once it is done of course it more or less works for the rest of the film but it just makes the whole film feel forced for about 30 minutes or so.Jet Li does well in the lead and he is a good enough actor to try and provide emotion where the script gives him none and the film has no patience to allow him much time to let his character feel anything other than bad guy's kicks. He is physically impressive but he also shows a good range here in limited opportunities. The role of Johnny could have been an annoying kid role and, in a way, it is, but the casting of little Miu Tse at least makes the role one that contributes to the action. The kid they had dubbing him in the version I saw, turned his dialogue into a typically Hollywood cutesy role but Tse himself is very impressive in his action scenes and makes up for the rest of his character's failing. Anita Mui is also physically very impressive and has some good action scenes and it is not her fault that her character is rather shoehorned into the film at the expensive of logic and emotional involvement.Overall this is an OK film but some will dislike the rather shoddy plot and the way it doesn't really deliver the emotions that the plot events suggest that it should. However what it does do is action and there are many good fights here involving all the main cast with only one or two moments where I felt the wirework was badly done.