Lee Rock (Wu yi tan zhang: Lei Luo zhuan)

Release Year: 1991

Director: Lawrence Ah Mon

Review: A new cop recruit goes from the bottom to the top in a span of just a few years, and loses all his morals along the way.  This is the first part of a trilogy following the rise and fall of Lee Rock.  Rock has to choose between sticking to his convictions about bribes and corruption, or join in to succeed.  While at first he resists, once he becomes desperate for money while trying to marry his love interest, he caves in and becomes as bad as the rest.

The biggest problem I had with this was that I'm not entirely sure why I should be rooting for Rock.  He is arrogant, greedy and not even all that charismatic.  It doesn't take much for him to go from the guy who would never take a bribe, to the one demanding the most money.  It seems the film is trying very hard to be the Hong Kong Godfather, only it doesn't work in the least.  There doesn't seem to be any values in Rock whatsoever, and there are no consequences for his decisions.  If I am to side with the "bad guy", at least make him complex enough to hold my interest.

Perhaps the lack of dimension in the plot could be excused if I was having a good time.  But, it really was a pretty dull movie.  The few fight scenes were not all to great and usually featured Rock being beaten to a pulp before someone else came and rescued him.  I really was enjoying the first 20 or so minutes where we were first starting to be introduced to Rock, but then they went in a completely new, and entirely uninteresting direction.

This was a thrills action movie which reached to high and came out empty.  The corruption and inner police conflict was a mess which never really amounted to anything of consequence.  Perhaps the series is saved in the sequels, but based on the first movie I can't get behind Lee Rock, and thus the movie fails.

Rating: 2/5