Johnnie To’s judo film with Aaron Kwok and Louis Koo, Throw Down, Chow Yun-fat playing against type in Wild Search: 3 neglected Hong Kong action movies

Hidden gems of Hong Kong action cinema, Johnnie To’s Throw Down, Lau Kar-leung’s The Spiritual Boxer and Ringo Lam’s Wild Search merit film fans’ attention

Lam cast Chow Yun-fat against type as a depressed cop, To pitted Aaron Kwok against Louis Koo on the judo mat, and Lau’s film launched the kung fu comedy genre

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Aaron Kwok (top) and Louis Koo in a still from Throw Down, Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To’s movie about judo that was his loosely scripted tribute to Akira Kurosawa. It’s one of three forgotten classics of Hong Kong action cinema we highlight. Photo: China Star Entertainment Group

Published: 4:15am, 17 Mar 2024Updated: 4:31am, 17 Mar 2024

Some movies no longer get the attention they deserve. We recall a trio of Hong Kong action films that either didn’t get the acclaim they merited, or have fallen off the radar.

Wild Search (1989)

Wild Search was regarded as something different from director Ringo Lam Ling-tung when it was released.

Known for urban crime films like the classic City on Fire, Lam set much of Wild Search in a village in Hong Kong’s New Territories, a creative choice which gave it an unusual rural tone.

Wild Search (1989) Trailer

Moreover, while the film did feature a lot of gun violence – it would have been difficult to get financial backing for a crime film without that in 1989 – the shoot-outs were toned down, even though they were still too exaggerated to be described as realistic.

Rather than making a “bullet ballet”, Lam made a relationship drama set against the backdrop of a crime story.

It’s tempting to think that if the economics of filmmaking had permitted it, his focus would have shifted even more towards the relationship between a cop and the family he is trying to protect.

“Lam’s Wild Search came after the intense descent into darkness of his On Fire movies – City on Fire, Prison on Fire, and School on Fire – and so it felt like a welcome breath of fresh air,” says Grady Hendrix, author of These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America.