IN THE LINE OF DUTY IV [1989]

In the Line of Duty IV (1989)
Directed by: Yuen Woo-Ping
Written by: Chi-Sing Cheung, Kwong-Kim Yip, Wing-Fai Wong
Starring: Cynthia Khan, Donnie Yen, Michael Wong, Yat Chor Yuen

AKA WONG GA SI JE IV: JIK GIK JING YAN, IN THE LINE OF DUTY, IN THE LINE OF DUTY 4: WITNESS, YES MADAM 4, ROYAL MADAM IV  

HONG KONG

RUNNING TIME: 94 mins

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY: 2OTH MARCH, from EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

In Seattle, Insp. Yeung Lai-Ching and Officer Donny Yan are after a drug cartel, along with colleague Peter Woods. Peter manages to track the criminals to their intended dealing location, but when he takes a photograph of a CIA agent involved, he’s seen and shot. In his dying moments, he gives the film to a passing Hong Kong immigrant dock worker, Luk Wan-Ting, who loses it in the ensuing chase, but nobody will believe that he hasn’t still got it, and the police thinks he’s one of the crooks. Donny and Yeung are ordered to extradite him to Hong Kong, but then he escapes custody. Penny believes that Luk is innocent while Donny thinks he’s guilty, but a far bigger problem is that the cartel might have someone on the police force keeping tabs on them about their investigation…

You can’t really say that they left the best for last, seeing as there were four more In The Line Of Duty movies to go after this one, two of them continuing to star Michelle Khan as Insp. Yeung Lai-Ching [her real name], who also returned as the character in two films otherwise unrelated to this series. Confusing undoubtedly, but appropriate considering the retitling and swapping of titles these movies have undergone. Nonetheless, In The Line Of Duty IV does seem to make a concerted effort to top the previous three, and comes off as pretty much a genuine classic of the action genre, which makes it something of a shame that Yes, Madam remains the most famous of this franchise because it was the first, but didn’t actually contain that much action, the emphasis being more on its supporting characters and their comedic hijinks. But that’s not something you can say about the second, third and fourth instalments, with this one offering a fight or a chase seemingly every few minutes, yet despite seemingly having so little time to such things it also has a fairly decent plot containing some genuine suspense. Royal Warriors and In The Line Of Duty III increased the brutality but here it’s toned down a bit, as is the nature of the fighting. We’re back to lengthy shots and wide angles, even if the editor still has his work cut out for him in disguising Khan’s doubles, and brawling is more grounded with a lot less wirework. It’s rather odd to see Khan now fighting in this different way, especially as she’s playing the same character too, and she kind of plays second fiddle to an emerging Donnie Yen, though she does get chances to showcase a genuine acting ability. There’s far less gunplay too, the aim clearly to pack in as many fights as possible though inventive touches abound to keep things fresh. As for humour, it’s almost non-existent in this one, but it’s not really missed.

Shots of Seattle under the opening titles lead us into a shopping mall where cops are tailing Chinese drug dealers. Yeung and Peter follow some to a seaport that night [and we’re now in Vancouver!] where a shipment has just arrived from Hong Kong. Yeung acrobatically infiltrates the docks but is caught by one of the workmen, Luk Wan-ting, whom she convinces that she’s a stowaway illegal immigrant, but at his apartment she tries to stealthily check in with Peter, who’s pursuing the dealers to an unknown location, but Luk catches her. Suddenly Luk’s brother Ming crashes in through a skylight, pursued by six armed thugs armed with metal bars to whom he owes $20,000. Luk battles them while Yeung does nothing except one kick and twirl some odd wrench nunchuku. Will we slowly build up to Khan properly fighting? Well actually no, she’s battling a villain in the next scene! Meanwhile, Donny tails a guy to a restaurant, where his friend Captain Michael Wong [Michael Wong playing a different person than he did in Royal Warriors despite them both having the same name as himself] happens to be having breakfast with a girl, and inadvertently obscures Donny’s view as the villain leaves. Elsewhere, Peter has followed the other dealers to a mining corporation warehouse on the docks, where they sell cocaine to a Caucasian gang. Peter attempts to arrest them all, revealing that the Caucasians’ leader is a CIA officer named Mr. Robinson, which the Hong Kong dealers didn’t know. The resulting gunplay has Robinson and his men shoot shoot all the Chinese dead, plus Peter after he’s has given him his gun and the negative of the photo. Luk accidentally drops the negative into the sea, a wonderfully cheeky idea so that we have this MacGuffin which nobody ever finds, and is rescued by the arrival of the police, who are convinced Luk has the film. A cop violently interrogates hin, but Luk successfully defends himself and escapes, heading for Ming’s place, where Ming gives up his ID card to get $3000 for a seat on a ship to take Luk back to Hong Kong that night. Ming then sacrifices his life to save Luk, in quite a touching moment.

Luk is really the one driving the narrative for a while, but it’s not as if Yeung and Donny [they really spent time thinking up names again] aren’t always going around getting into various scrapes. However, they become at odds with their different attitudes to Luk, starting when Donny, still convinced Luk is a cocaine dealer, is about to shoot Luk but Yeung knocks his gun away so that a man she thinks is innocent can escape. The two later engage in a fairly well written conversation where they express their opinions on Luk, policing and Yeung being “too sentimental”, yet not long after Donny helps Yeung and takes responsibility when she’s told off for putting Luk in danger by taking him to his mother’s, while a few scenes later the two seem fine with each other. I wonder if a couple of other dialogue scenes involving them were cut because we needed every single one of the twenty or so fight sequences to remain? Luk goes to Hong Kong and Donny and Yuen are waiting for him. I’ve read that the plot is very complicated, but it’s not at all; Donny and Yuen keep catching up with Luk who keeps on getting away, while the gangsters are also after Luk and they have somebody working for them in the police department. Who it is is revealed fairly early on and, one might have preferred that the revelation happen later when he employs a needle to kill off somebody Donny has been beating, thereby making it look like Donnie caused the death, or maybe even later when he reveals a From Russia With Love-style shoe blade to silence, but then suspense can be good, and we’re enjoyably uncomfortable when this person is lurking around, always seeming about to do something bad, even taking Yeung out to dinner. We do get some explanation of what these crooked CIA members are up to, which takes as its inspiration certain things that were going on in real life at the time. But it’s far more fight, chase, jump, drive, fight some more.

Khan is more at home with a more realistic style of fighting, and still able to showcase her kicking skills, though Yen gets a bit more action and is simply incredible even if he’s a bit awkward on screen when not fighting. After that first fight with Yuen Yat-chor as Luk, we have Yen fight non-oriental thugs in front of a shopping mall, then later on Khan gets a fight in a similar locale with just one person, which has a real traditional kung fu film style to it. Donny fights Luk twice, the first including a chase where rooftops are jumped from with absurd ease. Then two thugs try to retrieve Luk from an ambulance and Khan fights one of them on the roof, is kicked off, does a 720 degree backflip, kicks through the side windows, and hangs upside down by her feet, her head almost striking the road while he keeps kicking her – and Khan is doing most of this – before she falls and we get a Raiders Of The Lost Ark-type clinging to the grill of the front of the ambulance, her feet dragging on the road! Kahn also fights a guy who’s just injected her with something though she’s weakened. Yen may get more brawls, and even gets to fight a guy doing what looks like a form of monkey kung fu, but Kahn gets to fight another lady, Farley Ruth Kordica, the two making their way down part of a lift shaft as they punch, kick, hanging and fall in an incredible scene that you don’t want to end. And then Yen gets to battle another guy on a motorbike with axes and hammers; oh my god, this is action filmmaking at its most pure, totally wonderful. The finale has Khan, Yen and Chor Yuen encounter Wong and some others, with some opponents being swapped around! Khan has a swordfight with Wong and a rematch with Stephen Berwick while Yen, whose character is allowed to get badly injured, fights Michael Woods, who, when he realises he can’t win on martial arts skill, uses wrestling techniques! Throughout, Woo-Ping likes his fights to play out in wide spaces so the camera can keep back and take it all in, which is very different from the previous film. There are countless falls on concrete with what looks like no padding, and Wong gets a blank bullet fired right up close into his face!

You’ll probably laugh at the huge American flag taking up one wall in the main villain’s house, even though his link with the CIA is supposed to be secret, but there’s one major comedy scene, and it really works, where Yeung and Donnie take Luk to meet his mother. Luk is handcuffed to Yeung, so they pretend that the two of them are engaged and can’t keep apart for a second. Mother makes them some food and asks Yeung to hold out her hand, but of course she’s not supposed to see the handcuffs. When the others leave, Mother is given a poignant few seconds on her own so we can get a sense of her trying to process it all. It’s an interesting choice, seeing as the obvious end to the set piece would have been a final gag. The whole scene is also very well played by Khan, who shows a real knack for comedy, but then she’s really assured throughout, so much so that it’s a shame that Yen is more prominent; yes, he displays amazing skill and timing, but, in his second starring role after Tiger Cage, he’s still uneasy in front of the camera otherwise, and playing a character who isn’t that likable, cold and aggressive. For a series which supposedly promotes the idea of the fighting female, it’s a shame that only the second and third films really go to town on that. Yes, Madam had Yeoh and Rothrock play second fiddle to some comedic performers, and this one favours Yen over Khan, not that much but still there, even having the former rescue the latter not once but twice. Still, the two exhibit enough chemistry to make one wish that Tiger Cage 2 wasn’t their only reunion [and that one was brief]. Elsewhere, effort is made to provide interesting opponents for them, many of them non-Chinese. This time the music score, from Richard Yuen, emulates John Carpenter throughout, providing a sinister vibe which we don’t much get from elsewhere. A few lengthy interchanging chords are all they usually need for the fights, and this works really well, while a few melodic passages ably enhance certain melodramatic moments.

In The Line Of Duty IV is the least visually strong of the four films, and as I’ve already mentioned rarely even tries to be funny, but for my money it outdoes them in most other respects. It’s a film to show to those who don’t consider action movies to be worthy of serious respect and praise, a brilliant ballet of movement and power, a shining highlight from those “balls to the wall” golden days when Hong Kong filmmaking was the most exciting in the world.

Rating:

SPECIAL FEATURES

Limited Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling [2000 copies]

1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray of the original theatrical cut from a brand new 2K restoration
Again, fans of the film are treated to a restoration which is infinitely better than any version that they’ve seen before, while newcomers will be able to view it in the very best way. Colours are slightly drabber than in In The Line Of Duty III, but then that was the palette used; the detail is still there in spades, so much so that you can sometimes spot when stunt doubles are used [which is a lot of fun in its own right, especially seeing as many actors didn’t just feature properly in the film but also doubled other actors]. Blacks again look great though the colour isn’t used that much anyway in this one. Grain is probably even better distributed.

1080p HD presentation of the original export version from a brand new 2K restoration
Interestingly, this is a rare example of an export version being longer than a Hong Kong version, though the extra footage is only 17 seconds worth. We see Yeun and Donnie being introduced as new partners, but, seeing as there’s no conflict between them, and the scene is so short, the film doesn’t suffer for it being omitted. The English dub is roughly on the same level as most of those that were done at the time; not bad, but lacking much of the flavour of ones done in the ’70s.

Cantonese and English audio options (both in their original mono presentations)

Optional English Subtitles, newly translated for this release

Brand new feature length audio commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
I get the sense that the commentary tracks for these two films were done in one day by both Djeng and Leeder/Venema, seeing as the ones for In The Line Of Duty IV don’t sound quite so fresh. It’s interesting that on both tracks the third film is preferred to this one. Djeng provides the usual background on performers without going into tedious biography mode, comments on a fair few scenes as they play, and explains an altar seen in the background in one scene, telling us that it represents either the god of the earth or family ancestors. He also points out the sky constantly changing in the final fight; I was too into the action to notice.

Brand new feature length audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema
Leeder and Venema are stronger on the stories this time around, my favourite being Leeder quickly putting on a T-shirt before going to work with Simon Yuen and Woo-Ping, not realising the T-shirt was for one of their films which irritated them somewhat. We also learn that houses have no central heating in Hong Kong. The two are quite critical; Leeder even thinks that the bike chase gets too silly, while Venema thinks less money was spent on the art direction. Venema reckons that Khan and Yen lack chemistry, and Leeder doesn’t think that Khan is sexy – well I can’t say agree with those two points, but hey!

Archival commentary by Hong Kong expert Stefan Hammond and lead actor Michael Wong
This track was on the Hong Kong Legends DVD. Hammond and Wong immediately have a good rapport, and it’s lovely to hear memories coming back to Wong from a film he hasn’t seen for twelve years, though Hammond spends rather too much time explaining not just the plot but exactly what’s taking place on screen. Wong spots that he’s driving his own car and tells us that, when he was told he’s going to be put in the ice box, he thought it was a joke, only to be put in one in reality and tied to real ice. Meanwhile Hammond tells us that Khan had nightmares after doing that ambulance scene. There’s a lot of chuckling at and gentle mockery of the film, which is fine.

Archival interview with Donnie Yen [19 mins]
Also from the Hong Kong Legends is this interview, where Yen really lets the viewer know how hard and tough Hong Kong action is, where you “Don’t do anything easy”, emphasising things such as it doesn’t matter how great a martial artist you are if you don’t look good in front of the camera, and telling us that sometimes cameramen are hit and have to go to hospital! Woo-Ping would keep saying to him, “More power”, so much that Yen feared he’d kill Woods if he hit him any more. Yen doesn’t have a particularly high opinion of Khan, saying she was of limited ability.

Archival “Donnie Yen: Style of Action” featurette [15 mins]
From the Region 3 Hong Kong DVD from IVL is this similar piece, though taken from the set of Kill Shot, with some chat with another guy, though only Yen is subtitled, and a demonstration of a good angle to film a punch, and a fight from that film being shot. Yen rightly says that Hollywood doesn’t do action as well for several reasons, dismisses storyboards, and says how he judges actors’ ability early on by getting them to do some simple stuff. As he sometimes does, Yen comes across as slightly arrogant – not that I’d ever tell him to his face.

Trailers

Reversible sleeve design

A Limited Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by James Oliver [2000 copies]

At times taking action to dizzying heights, “In The Line Of Duty IV” is genuinely exhilarating, and on a fuller disc than “In The Line Of Duty III” too. Highly Recommended!