Contrary to his Tiger nickname, Francis Li (Chow Yun-Fat) is a pretty easy going cop. Owing his job to family connections, he's more interested in hitting onto hot chicks than fighting crime and – in an obvious departure from the star persona established by A Better Tomorrow and its "heroic bloodshed " kin – even pisses himself when looking down the barrel of a robber's gun.
Admittedly it doesn't help that the other cop in this scene, the driven, take-no-shit Michael Tso (Conan Lee – think Jackie Chan with bigger muscles), is daring the robber to pull the trigger…
Thankfully, this risky strategy pays off and the robber is soon disarmed. Not that this particularly soothes Tiger, nor endears Mike to him.
Things go from bad to worse for Tiger, then, as the higher-ups assign him to a high-profile drugs case and partner him with Mike.
The difference in their approaches is once more made all too clear as they go see one of Tiger's informant, self-referentially played by Chow Yun-Fat's Better Tomorrow co-star Ti Lung: Whereas Tiger calmly asks for information, Mike prefers the gung-ho, beat-it-out-of-him approach.
Fortunately busting some moves wins the respect of Tiger's informant – Mike has guts, if not smarts – and the three men bond over a drink as the Triad tells what he knows…
The trail leads Tiger and Mike to attractive aerobics instructor Marydonna, mixed up in this thanks to her shiftless gangster brother who either ripped off his erstwhile partners or was ripped off by them – either way, they want him dead and don't particularly care about collateral damage…
This, then, is a Hong Kong take on that contemporary Hollywood staple, the buddy cop film, with that same magic formula of action and comedy. Think Lethal Weapon , Tango and Cash , or – closer in spirit if not time – the first Rush Hour .
In terms of the action, Tiger on the Beat is undoubtedly effective – no film that features a climactic did-I-just-really-see-that chainsaw duel and the formidable presence of Gordon Liu as the main villain could be otherwise – but is maybe also somewhat schizophrenic, failing to showcase the best-of-the-best in terms of realistic hand-to-hand fighting, comedy and prop based work or heroic bloodshed gunplay.
The issue – it's too minor to be a problem or weakness – is that where director Lau Kar Leung's own background saw him specialise in the first approach (cf. his Shaolin films with Liu), US college athlete Lee and Hong Kong TV-trained Yun-Fat were more familiar with the latter two (cf. Ninja in the Dragon's Den and A Better Tomorrow , for example).
In terms of the second, the film is less successful. While the humour is occasionally too culturally specific to work for gwailos , a more serious concern here as far as PC types are concerned is likely to be the moment when Tiger beats up Marydonna causing her, with predictable effect, to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with him. (Though, in fairness, it should be pointed out that plenty of older Hollywood films displayed similar dynamics.)
There is also, however, a degree of unintentional comedy supplied by the then-hip, now horribly dated 1980s styles on display, with our heroes seemingly kitted out in Crockett and Tubbs' hand me downs and the bad guys delighting in flashing their brick-sized mobile phones.
Elsewhere, Yun-Fat's charisma – that infectious grin – and his willingness, shared by Lee, to enter into the self-deprecating spirit of things compensates for the overuse of bad rock music to accompany the action.
Worth seeing.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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