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Long Good-bye
The Head Hunter / The Killer in Love
Hong Kong 1982
produced by
Kung Chuan-Kai, Law Hing Man for Seasonal
directed by Lau Shing-Hon
starring Chow Yun-Fat, Rosamund Kwan, Philip Chan, Ko Chun Hsiung, Tang Ching, Wan Chi KEung, Melvin Wong, Chen Liang, Flora Cheung, Chu Te-wei, Wellington Fung, Li Chia-li, Lo Wai, Tsang Choh Lam, Wong Hak, Wu Hang-Sheng, Yat Boon Chai, Stephan Yip
written by Szeto Cheuk-Hon, Lau Shing-Hon, music by Tang Siu-Lam
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Yuen Lik (Chow Yun-Fat) works as an explosions-expert for a Hong
Kong-based film company. He is also an immigrant from Vietnam and has been
traumatized from serving in the war. Now he wants to save up enough money
to get his family out of Vietnam as well. Thing is, you don't make as much
as explosions-expert. But Yuen Lik's boss Or Wing Fu (Ko Chun Hsiun) knows
about Yuen Lik's hardships - and thus hires him as contract killer in his
sparetime. Then though, someone within Wing Fu's operation turns on Yuen
Lik, and Wing Fu's second-in-command Tang Kin (Tang Chin) convinces him
that it's the boss himself who wants to get rid of him - so Yuen Lik
shoots Wing Fu dead, then lets the body disappear. He doesn't know of
course that it was all a plot set up by Tang Kin himself to take over Wing
Fu's operations ... Yuen Lik meets Pui Lam (Rosamund Kwan), and the two
soon fall in love and become a couple. Pui Lam is Wing Fu's daughter, so
Yuen Lik refrains from telling her what he has done to her daddy. Tang Kin
however wants Yuen Lik to off Pui Lam as well, and when he refuses, he
sees to it that Yuen Lik has a little accident on set - an accident
that doesn't kill him though, and somehow Yuen Lik and Pui Lam manage to
make a getaway and stay off the radar until Yuen Lik's injuries are
healed. During that time, Yuen Lik learns his family has died trying to
leave Vietnam ... Tang Kin meanwhile has become more hell-bent that ever
to get both Yuen Lik and Pui Lam out of the way, so he hires Kam Ta Fu
(Philip Chan), an old army buddy of Yuen Lik back from Vietnam who holds a
grudge against him, to do the job, and Kam is quick to kidnap Pui Lam to
lure Yuen Lik out into the open ... In the finale, Yuen Lik manages to
kill both Kam and Tang Kin, but he can't keep Pui Lam from learning that
he has actually killed her father, and ultimately, having lost everything,
he tricks her into shooting him. A rather dull action flick
based on an incredibly confusing script. The main problem of the thing is
that it never decides in which direction to go, gangster movie, contract
killer flick, social drama, lovestory - but instead of trying to blend all
these genres, The Long Good-bye only loosely ties together a few
elements from each of them and lets its ill-conceived story find its own
way - and most of the time, this concept either fails to make proper sense
or loses itself in moments of pure kitsch. In any way, not a film you'll
want to see.
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find Long Good-bye at adultvideouniverse.com
