AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Ottilia This is the film from which Tarantino copied the idea of mutilating someone's ear for a bit of a shocker effect. The film chronicles the career of the "O gang", a bunch of Mainland Chinese who hope to make some superfast bucks during a few days of illegal stay in the crown colony.Things start to go in the wrong direction for them even before they can cross the border, however and the gang makes a conscious effort to defeat the odds through camaraderie and loyalty. They loudly profess their love of freedom and one wonders if these are in fact hardened criminals or clueless country potatoes. They definitely are clueless towards their impending downward spiral that continues with a double cross from a local mobster, while they have to wait for their targeted jewelery shop to re-open after someone else's robbery.This film has it all, gratuitous violence that was all but impossible for western cinema back then. Very funny and absurd tales of country boys vs the HK redlight district. Now historic Hong Kong footage from the walled city ghetto, where the gang takes refuge in an underground clinic and is drawn into a superbly staged final shootout.A classic tale of male and criminal self-destruction, told in an early superlow-budget HK film from a bygone era.

Schwenkstar When I came across this film on IMDb I found the comments here to be very positive, portraying the film as one of the milestones of Hong Kong action cinema. With these glowing reviews I decided to make a "blind buy" purchase and order it on DVD through an online retailer. It was only $8.00 and I figure it was worth the gamble, especially since I had such admiring reviews to back me up. This aura of positive reviews, however, made me ask the question, "If this film is so essential to Hong Kong cinema, why hasn't anyone seen it? Or better yet, why is it completely unknown?" After I received my DVD and watched it, I found out.The film is rather dull in all accounts. The film tries to build back story for the characters in the beginning of the film, but it only spends approximately ten minutes here before thrusting the characters into a clichéd action story. Ten minutes isn't enough time to build characters, especially when there is about six characters to develop.And the film doesn't spend time on their relationships or internal psyches throughout the rest of the film. Instead, it concentrates on a fumbled heist, a few murders, torture, and whorehouses, totally devoid of any human emotion.And the acting doesn't doesn't help in any way either. Most of the characters seem to be assigned one emotion and each must play that emotion to the fullest. As a result we witness over-the-top and occasionally irritating performances (some of the characters seems to be be on the verge of tears every time they are in a mess, causing the audience to groan at their complaining and constant whining).As for that narrative portion of the film, it is greatly unfocused. The film is more of a culmination of scenes rather than a solid plot thread and the audience becomes confused trying to figure out how these scenes are related.Also, the film places focus on irrelevant and unimportant scenes that do not further the story nor the development of the characters, such as the time spent on scenes at the whorehouse. These scenes seem pointless since they merely show the sexual intercourse between the men and prostitutes and do not add any commentary on anything.However, the film does contain one noteworthy merit and that is the final shoot out that takes place in the back alleys of Hong Kong.The sequence lasts about ten minutes and is indeed well executed. Here, the fugitives are running away from what appears to be an unending force of police officers through a labyrinth of hallways. The narrow passages and maze-like structure reflects the claustrophobic nature the characters are feeling and as more and more officers propagate within this tight locations, the fugitives are squeezed into a smaller and smaller area until they must make a final stand.However, this scene is only well made on a technical level. Since the characters and story are so underdeveloped, we don't really care what the results of the shootout will be. Instead, the viewer will take joy in the sequence on a purely visual level, making the scene an experience but not a satisfying dénouement.I don't see how this could possibly be a cornerstone of Hong Kong cinema when it has been so sloppily made. Most likely the film has simply received a small cult following thanks in part to the well executed final sequence, and thus have been over-praised in some areas.The film isn't a totally lost, but it really isn't worth seeing. I would recommend this to only those who are Hong Kong Action (Heroic Bloodshed, Gun-fu, Bullet Ballet) completests, and even then it would only be to see that final scene.

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.