Director: Soi Cheang

Starring: Shawn Yu, Ryo Ishibashi, Dylan Kuo, Annie Liu, Masato

Featuring: Francis Ng, Pei Pei Wei-Ying

Chock-full of sex and violence, but still just friendly enough to garner a IIB rating, Shamo is perhaps not surprisingly based on a Japanese manga. The main character, Ryo (played by Shawn Yu), is sent to jail after killing his parents. The notoriety of Ryo’s crime makes him a prime target, which results in (as the plot description on the back cover politely puts it) a “buggering”. After the attack, Ryo attempts suicide, but is saved by Kenji (Francis Ng), an old-timer in the jail who teaches Ryo to defend himself.

After getting paroled, Ryo sets out to find his sister (Pei Pei Wei-Ying), and decides the best way to get her attention is by defeating the champion (Masato) of a popular TV show called “Lethal Fight”. Ryo’s reputation proceeds him, and he quickly becomes one of the top stars on the show. But getting to his sister and the real reason he killed his parents won’t be as easy as just winning a few matches for Ryo.

So, yeah, you could throw Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Segal, or, hell, even Jeff Speakman ala their prime back in the halcyon days of around 1986 into Shawn Yu’s role and probably get the same results. And that’s really Shamo’s charm.

Part loving homage and part mocking parody to the brainless action movies that garnered shelf space at your local video store back in the eighties and still are a mainstay of late-night cable viewing, Shamo throws a ton of stuff at the viewer. Thankfully, like the better Hong Kong films, some of it actually sticks.

Yeah, the acting isn’t that hot (besides Francis Ng, who would probably still look cool if he was filmed for an hour doing nothing but eating noodles) and the story is pretty much garbage. But Shamo, at the very least, is a damn interesting movie that — for better or worse — will hold your attention. Whether it’s because it’s exciting or akin to a cinematic train wreck is up to the individual viewer, but at least you won’t be bored. And that’s a lot more than a lot of movies, from both Hong Kong and the United States, can claim nowadays.

Film Review By: William Suthers

You can buy this DVD at: www.hongkong-store.com