“The Taxi Driver” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Pao Hsueh Lieh
Cast: David Chiang, Wang Chung, Lam Jan Kei (Lin Chen-Chi), Danna, Yen Shi Kwan
Running Time: 94 min.
By Mighty Peking Man
In Taxi Driver, David Chiang plays a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran who works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process…
Just kidding.
This David Chiang flick (which was made a year before the De Niro movie) has nothing to do with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, other than the two sharing the same title.
This taxi driver tale is, for the most part, light-hearted in comparison. Part drama, a little bit of comedy, some cornball, and a tad of action – it’s pretty much all over the place. Even for a 1975 Hong Kong flick, it’s uneven, choppy, and doesn’t really belong to any particular genre.
A good portion of the movie is dedicated to a bank heist, in which a group of thugs force David Chiang’s character to be their getaway driver… (but let’s not get into that.)
If you’re expecting lots of solid kung fu action, gore, or some other kind of Rated-R activity, you’ll be disappointed. Sure, it does have some violence, a tame sex scene (is that Betty Ting Pei?) and a nipple shot or two; but mark my word, it’s pretty tame.
Hopefully, I’m not making it sound like it’s an awful movie. It’s not. If anything, it’s interesting. I mean, where else are you going to see David Chiang and Wang Chung play adventurous taxi drivers? Besides, David Chiang’s girlfriend (Lam Jan Kei) is cute as hell.
Mighty Peking Man’s Rating: 6/10
