Pluskylang Great Film overall

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

bcheng93 i see that there is only one mediocre review and the rest were all good, so most people understood the story and what it was trying to say. the mediocre review came from an American who read only positive reviews for it, got hyped, went out and bought the DVD and then felt the only good thing about the movie was the final shoot-out. well...,he's partially right as the final shoot-out is awesome and serious fans of international gangster movies know about the shoot-out. the guy obviously has not watched a lot of movies or he would have also mentioned the helicopter scene that was ripped off in " the godfather 3 ".if the movie were to be made here in America even at that time it would have costed between 10-15 million to make probably and johnny mak was able to make a great movie that stands the test of time for under one million. we in America get the best in every department and the most budget to make movies with. we make mediorce movies with no original ideas and then our citizens mock other countries motion picture gems!huh...go figure that out!all-right...i'm done ranting, more about the movie. this movie was actually the first new wave gangster movie to come out of hong kong, a couple of years before john woo's " a better tomorrow ". it is based loosely on fact because during the 80's in hong kong the most ruthless gangsters were in fact the ones that snuck over the border from mainland china, did their crime and if they were smart got the hell out of there pronto. the movie is very bleak because its trying to show the mindset of the ruthless mainland criminals. life was pretty hard back then in mainland china, if you made 200 dollars us a month you had it pretty good. in the opening shots of the film showing guangchow city...well it really was like that. i've been to china multiple times in the 2000's and a lot of china still looks like that. the common people are very poor, there is no middle class. the reason the mainlanders went to hong kong to commit crimes was that it was easier, there were more targets and there was no death penalty, where-as in china they put you in front of a firing squad right away.i don't condone robbing and killing if necessary as a way for your family to improve its lot in life but i can picture somebody doing it out of desperation. people get sick of being poor with no way out, how would you feel if a loved one was dying and you can't afford the medicine, or not being able to put enough food on the table?so, the mainlanders go to hong kong and usually rob jewelry stores and banks. they were better criminals then the natives because they were ex- military and they were desperate. many of them wound up getting used by the local criminal elements. they were so sick of being poor that they would put up their lives as collateral to the devil. well...the crew make it to hong kong minus one member and something goes wrong right away. they were suppose to be on a planned timetable and nothing seems to work out. they get set up by the local criminal element that they are involved with and mayhem just follows and erupts.i know that there were not any famous actors in the movie except for Lin Wei and none of the production was top notch and there wasn't enough character development as it was a short film, but the movie is an oh so compelling watch. the final 20 minutes was such a compelling watch and you could actually feel the grit and the desperation and it was filmed in the walled city which is like a ghetto times 10.BTW...everything happens in the midst of two days, new years eve 1983 and then the next day which is new years 1984. that it happen then also played a part in the movie cause you could see how it didn't really mean anything to the mainlanders, but in the upscale whorehouse where they spent their last night there were no clients as everybody was home with their families.this is must watch hong kong cinema and if your a gangster movie fan then that is a double bonus. this movie ranks very high in the best movies of the 80's from hong kong. i think it is in the top 5 and it is certainly in my top 5. enjoy it if you get the chance...and i have to say again it is very bleak, not a happy film.

Dmitry Alemasov Released in 1984, "Long Arm of the Law" has a layer of historical context that may be unfamiliar for nowadays audience outside China.The movie is exactly set in time: around Christmas of 1983 and New Year eve of 1984.In the very beginning the police file of Big Tung (or Brother Tung, called so by his buddies and partners from HK underworld) is displayed.Aged 32 at the time, Tung was one of the Red Guard leaders in Canton back in the Cultural Revolution, moved to Hong Kong in 1979, since then was suspected of several crimes. Obviously, other gang members were in the ranks of Red Guards too. As I think, they inherited their merciless and cruel attitude to others from there.On the opposing side, there is superintendent Lee, looking between 40 and 50. In the sixties he surely was on service and stood against leftists who terrorized Hong Kong in 1967. For him, the "O Gang" came from that time. In the eyes of this police official, chasing the gang was not investigation but warfare, and finally it turned so.

Bogey Man Long Arm of the Law (1984) by producer/writer Johnny Mak (his only film as a director) is considered as the first of the Heroic Bloodshed films, "officially" being born with A Better Tomorrow, by John Woo. Long Arm of the Law is written by former police officer Philip Chan, who has made many other films, too, for example CAT3 rated thriller Night Caller. Director Johnny Mak wanted to use amateur actors in Long Arm, and that is very wise choice as the film is now very realistic and almost documentary like. *next pharagraph includes minor spoilers!*The film tells the story of so called Big Circle gang, which lives in mainland China but plans to visit Hong Kong in order to rob a jewellery store there and then come back to mainland as rich men. The gang includes a leader, a calm Tung, and some other men, and they are very loyal to each other. The things start to go horribly wrong as one of them is killed soon, and the jewellery store has already been robbed by another gang, so the area is filled with police officers. What follows is a delay of the robbery and happenings that only make things more difficult and hopeless for our protagonists..*no more spoilers..*Long Arm of the Law is simply among the greatest Hong Kong action dramas I've ever seen. There's no stupid slapstick humor or funny moments, this is real and gritty slice of urban life with all its hopelessness and poverty, both emotional and monetary. The theme is very close to so called Heroic Bloodshed films created ultimately and with great commercial success by master John Woo with his beautiful films like A Better Tomorrow 1-2 and The Killer. Woo's films are always very beautiful and symbolic, and also in a way optimistic, and I really love his artistic and stunning cinema, too. But Long Arm is very different from Woo's films, because it is so bleak, gritty, dark and the violence is anything but beautiful or ballet like. And again, I'm not understating Woo's work, I'm just writing about the differences between Long Arm and his films, as they share the same great genre in Hong Kong cinema. Long Arm of the Law is pretty same in tone with Johnnie To's incredible masterpiece of mayhem cinema The Big Heat, which is also one of the greatest achievements in Orient cinema I've seen.Long Arm of the Law and The Big Heat are brutal in any possible way, and their depiction of world we live in is ugly and merciless. The characters in Long Arm of the Law eventually turn against each other, and soon we witness the first legendary Heroic Bloodshed element as the characters point each others' heads with guns, a familiar element in John Woo's films. They were loyal to each other, but then due to the crisis they were thrown into, their relations suffered and all the dreams and goals were destructed and crushed. The police is depicted pretty ugly in this film as they shoot at innocent people in order to get the criminals, and they shoot at criminals, too, without trying to solve things with talking. Since this film is written by Phillip Chan, a former police officer, we can only hope this is NOT based on his experiences in the force. If it is based, then this film becomes even more important and should be seen by every leader and police chief in every country in the world as a warning. Long Arm of the Law is brilliantly shot and is as fantastic as action films can be. The action scenes and scenes of shoot outs are so great that one can only hope this could be seen in the big screen. The last scene that lasts about 15 minutes in the famous Walled City in Hong Kong slum is incredible and among the greatest, most claustrophobic and insane gun fight scenes I've ever seen in any film. Also the other scenes are more than fantastic, and the violence is also very brutal and realistic. The bullets hit people without remorse, and the results are as in real life: blood, pain and eventually the death. The scene at the skating rink is as memorably mean as the motorway death scene in The Big Heat. After all the mayhem has finished and the end credits roll, there is a feel of total pessimism and despair, and the viewer should be nailed to the seat and stopped to think about the state and values of the world the film is set.There are few little flaws in this film, and without them, I would've given this a full 10 stars rating. There are some things not explained about the robbery. For instance, didn't they really have to wear any masks or bullet-proof vests of any kind in the first place? Also, the scene in which bullets are taken off of character's body, it all seems to happen a little too easily and without the victim feeling anything. There are some other similar minor stupidities and little mistakes in this film, but they are easy to forgive as the film as a whole is so great.Long Arm of the Law deserves 9/10 rating, and is among the finest examples of Hong Kong cinema, which is totally unique compared to Western cinema.

ChWasser In this first (and best) of a four-part film series a group of men from the mainland illegally enters Hong Kong and soon forms a 'Big Circle' triad gang. It doesn't take long till the police is hot on their trail which inevitably leads to a final shootout. This takes place in the infamous 'Walled City' which was razed to the ground a few months later in real life. So this film is the last chance to behold the labyrinthic chaos of people, goods, narrow alleys and illegality that was the 'Walled City'. If you, like me, prefer the coarse, mangy and dirty Hong Kong action-movies of the 80s over the high-gloss, elegant movies of the 90s, this one's for you.