Undercover Punch and Gun (2019) Review

“Undercover Punch and Gun” Theatrical Poster

Director: Philip Lui
Co-director: Frankie Tam
Cast: Andy On, Philip Ng, Vanness Wu, Carrie Ng, Nicholas Tse, Carrie Ng, Lam Suet, Aka Zhao, Jiang Luxia, Aaron Aziz, Joyce Feng, Jessica Cambensy
Running Time: 90 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Before you’ve gotten through the plethora of production company logos that kick off Undercover Punch and Gun (and there’s a lot of them!), the title alone is enough to give an indication as to what kind of movie is about to hit the screen. Evoking the slightly goofy names that HK action cinema used to be littered with throughout the 90’s, Undercover Punch and Gun is the kind of grammatical car crash that you’d expect to find sitting on a DVD shelf alongside the likes of Tough Beauty and the Sloppy Slop. It’s not only the title that feels like a throwback to the 90’s low budget action genre though, with the movie itself feeling as if it’s been beamed directly from 1995 to 2019.

In fact while Undercover Punch and Gun was released in 2019, it was actually filmed in 2015. The first time directorial effort of screenwriters Philip Lui Koon-Nam and Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen (the pair worked on Gordon Chan’s The Four franchise, who also produces here), here they pair up kung fu thespians Philip Ng and Andy On. Quite what the trigger was for their debuts eventual release is mystery, perhaps it was the case that someone saw On’s performance in the Roger Corman produced Abduction, and insisted that the world was ready. It could also be the case that I’m clutching at straws.

Ng and On have worked together many times before, with roles in the likes of Star Runner, New Police Story, Dragon Squad, Invisible Target, Naked Soldier, and Zombie Fight Club. However their most notable collaboration came in the form of 2014’s Once Upon a Time in Shanghai, were they shared co-lead status, and went toe-to-toe under the choreography of Yuen Woo-Ping. Here they’re given the opportunity to once again share co-lead status and face off against each other, only this time with choreography handled by Ng himself, with assistance from Joe Chu Cho-Kuen.

The plot of Undercover Punch and Gun is cookie cutter fare. Ng plays an undercover cop in a gang run by Lam Suet (who should really put a pantent of these ’Gang boss who shows up for 5 minutes and gets offed’ roles – see also The Trough and The Brink). Ng, like any undercover cop in a movie, is in too deep, to the extent that he’s dating the bosses daughter and has formed a brotherly bond with another member of the gang (Vaness Wu, channeling a Dean Shek level of constant gurning and irritation). When Suet is killed in a shootout, Ng is made leader of the gang and is soon being pulled in every direction. His superior, played by Nicholas Tse in an all too rare screen appearance these days, wants him to go deeper, while Suet’s partner-in-crime, played by the legendary Carrie Ng (Naked Weapon) has her suspicions about Ng’s real motives.

Events lead to Ng being sent to meet On, a former special agent who’s gone rogue, and now runs a meth lab from a cargo ship in international waters. On believes that Suet must have been running his own drug factory somewhere local, and wants Ng to find the person that was making the drugs, and deliver whoever it is to him for gainful employment. With only a cringe inducing Vaness Wu and a special agent (Joyce Feng, Project Guttenberg) for company, Ng sets out to claim his life back, and take out On in the process. The ingredients are all there to replicate the charm of those 90’s contemporary HK action flicks (the likes of Angry Ranger and Retreat of the Godfather – I’m looking at you), however even by 90’s HK standards, structurally Undercover Punch and Gun frequently becomes a baffling experience.

Suet’s daughter (Aka Zhao – who notably hasn’t appeared in anything since) is a tattoo artist, and when the time comes for Ng to break the news that her father has been killed, he does it when she’s in the middle of tattooing one of her customers. It’s hilarious, even moreso when she threatens her customer when she asks to leave and come back another time. The whole runtime is full of bizarre moments like this, some intentionally humerous, others not. In one scene we meet a group of kidnappers who sport a permanent creepy grin and seem incapable of blinking, in another a character is interrupted by a spam sales call from a bank, and in another On takes the time to point out that he’s unfriending Ng from the WeChat application.

In total 7 scriptwriters are credited, of which 2 are directors Koon-Nam and Gong-Yuen, and it kind of feels like they were all writing separately, including parts that they probably felt were guaranteed to be re-written by one of their colleagues, but somehow got left and slipped through the net. However, let’s be honest, nobody is clocking into Undercover Punch and Gun expecting Shakespeare, this is a movie sold on reuniting two of this era’s brightest fighting talents (and, ok, in some circles also as a Star Runner reunion). On the action front, Ng’s choreography, relating both to the choreography itself and his delivery of it, is on the mark. This isn’t mind-blowing stuff, and in an era were movies like The Raid franchise and The Night Comes for Us have shifted the bar higher than it’s been held for a long time, that may not satisfy everyone.

However, Ng eschews any temptation to resort to wirework, and delivers a fight flick that shows a commitment to staying grounded throughout, relying on the skill of the performers rather than the spectacle of assisted kicks or falls. It may be this lack of the spectacular which led to Undercover Punch and Gun staying on the shelf for so long, but as a fan of grounded exchanges that highlight the skills of those performing them, there’s a lot to enjoy here. At one point Ng unleashes a sweet set of chain kicks, and a fight which takes place in a drug lab clearly shows the influence of Jackie Chan’s ‘run and gun’ style of choreography, complimented by multiple prop usage being incorporated into the fray.

Ng and On aren’t the only skilled screen fighters, with the likes of Jiang Luxia (Operation Red Sea, Bad Blood) and Aaron Aziz (KL Gangster, Special Female Force) rounding out the cast as members of On’s entourage. While for the majority of the runtime they have little to do beyond lingering in the background, when it comes to the finale they both get their chance to shine. Luxia faces off against Ng in a furious open hand fight, while a kukri knife wielding Aziz gets to battle against a butterfly knife wielding Vaness Wu. The best is saved for last, with Ng and On throwing down within the confines of a container, and contains plenty of wince inducing impacts. While the requirements of the NRTA mean there’s a distinct lack of blood or any real signs of bodily damage, thankfully this doesn’t become too much of a detriment to the scene itself.

On himself steals the show whenever he’s onscreen, instilling his character with a childlike enthusiasm towards his villainous ways, and likewise for former Shaw Brothers bombshell Susan Shaw, who makes a playful appearance as the chemist Ng is seeking out (oh, and look out for a 2-second cameo by Jessica C, Ng’s co-star from Zombie Fight Club). Ultimately though Undercover Punch and Gun struggles to hit the 90 minute mark, with various scenes reeking all too obviously of filler. One in particular has Vaness Wu pretending to be the chemist, which takes a bizarre turn into a cookery show format, and consists of Wu dancing and other punch-the-screen inducing shenanigans. Others have Ng and On staring at each other for just a tad too long, while watching Joyce Feng searching the ship quickly becomes a chore.

Still, it’s an admirable effort, with the only real difference between now and those 90’s HK flicks of old being that we don’t watch these more recent efforts with the rose-tinted glasses that we do the latter. It’s a straight laced story that unfolds in the usual container yards and warehouses of old, contains plenty of familiar HK faces, and delivers frequent bursts of vintage HK kickboxing style action. For those that frequently bemoan the fact that Hong Kong doesn’t make movies like it used to, well, here’s one that delivers exactly that. As the expression goes, be careful what you wish for.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10