Last Updated on October 6, 2020 by rob
Ko Da-fu (Charlie Chin) the leader of a five-strong Hong Kong hit squad finds his team wiped out and himself injured and on the run from a group of blade-wielding, roller-skating assassins. Ko’s investigations lead him to the Wa-hing triad and as a former member Ko suspects he’s being set up as the fall guy in a spot of inter-gang rivalry. But as he tries to uncover the truth both the mysterious killers and the dishevelled but determined Inspector Chung (Yueh Hua) are determined to stop him. A tough, bleak little thriller about killers who’ve outlived their time with some interesting characters such as Ko’s terminally ill female employer plus lots of modest but expertly staged and edited action sequences, the best of which is a stylishly mounted pursuit of Ko that turns the circular lobby of a plush office foyer into a bloody Rollerball-style encounter with a team of knife-wielding killers on roller-skates.
In the film’s climactic showdown director Tong even has his star blasting away with a gun in each hand in the style later popularised by John Woo and then seemingly every other action director on the planet. That image quickly became a cliche but Coolie Killer must certainly be one of the earliest examples of it. The story takes a number of unexpected turns and in the case of a brief romantic affair between Ko and Ton Ke-yee (Cecilia Yip Tung) absolutely not the kind of ending the viewer might wish for but nontheless absolutely in keeping with the nihilistic nature of these characters and the theme of killers who’ve outlived their time (a point neatly underlined by Ko’s inability to assemble a gun from its component parts).
But the brutality is offset by some typically Hong Kong humour, mainly from Hua’s performance as a cop stuck with a head cold he can’t shake (sneezing on corpses and the like) and both he and Chin have good chemistry in their scenes together. Add in unfulfilled romantic yearnings, brotherhood and betrayal and along with On The Run (1988) this looks like an important precursor of the Hong Kong genre as it would subsequently become. Also, lead actor Charlie Chin is a good looking and not uncharismatic lead. Why he didn’t become a bigger star on the strength of this is quite baffling. A hard to find film but well worth a look for genre fans. The pulsating synth score isn’t bad either.
