Sammo Hung's epic Vietnam war movie is a three-genre effort that seamlessly combines hard-knuckle martial arts action with battle shoot-outs and typical Chinese comedy. It's a great, fast-moving film with plenty of action to recommend it for genre fans; all of the Vietnam movie clichés are present and correct, and used to good effect. From underwater cages to jungle warfare and a bridge that needs to be traversed, Hung is in his element and the result is an eminently rewatchable film that stands as a minor classic.

Hung famously lost a load of weight for this role and he's never been better as the lean, mean, death machine, and the machete seems to be his weapon of choice this time around – lopping heads and limbs is par for the course for Sammo in this movie. He's supported by an exquisite Yuen Biao, acting at the peak of his career, and both men are top-notch in the many martial art fights that punctuate the movie. An effective supporting cast fleshes out the rest of the roles, from Lam Ching-Ying as the heroic colonel to Haing S. Ngor (straight from THE KILLING FIELDS) as a village idiot. Also on hand is Yuen Wah as the scene-stealing giggling general; he's a particularly nasty piece of work in this one, and enjoys punishing people's muscles and bones (when you watch the film, you'll see what I mean).

The plot is taken straight from THE DIRTY DOZEN and there are some great tragic deaths that would benefit any war classic. The violence is also a lot harder than usual for a Hong Kong flick, with some truly cringe-making moments. Lots of people are shot, lots of buildings are blown up, and the twists and turns in the movie's plot are endless, so you can never predict what's going to happen at any one time. As is typical for a Hong Kong flick, the finale is a huge set-piece in a munitions warehouse, featuring Biao and Hung battling it out with the ubiquitous Dick Wei, Billy Chow, Yasuaki Kurata, and Yuen Wah's surprisingly sprightly mega-villain. EASTERN CONDORS is a perfect treat for action fans and really can't be bettered.

In the early 90s, after reading a glowing review of the film in a fanzine, I shelled out mucho dinero for a pirated un-subtitled VHS copy of Eastern Condors. And even though I didn't have a clue what was being said, the movie blew me away with its OTT gung-ho action, bullet-riddled battle scenes and unbelievable martial arts madness.

These days the film is available on DVD remastered, fully restored and subtitled, so fans of fantastic fight action have no excuse for not checking out this marvellous movie.

Director and star Sammo Hung takes the basic plot of The Dirty Dozen (a group of criminals take part in a dangerous mission with the promise of freedom if they succeed),adds a touch of The Deer Hunter and Rambo, and throws in a ton of amazing kung fu to deliver one of the best Hong Kong flicks of the 80s.

Joining Sammo on his dangerous mission (into Vietnam, to destroy a hidden US munitions dump) are the brilliant Yuen Baio (as a Vietnamese profiteer dealing in smuggled goods),Oscar winner Haing S. Ngor, Lam Ching Ying, Yuen Woo-ping, Corey Yuen, Charlie Chin, and Sammo's real-life wife, the gorgeous Joyce Godenzi. Playing nasty bad-guys out to foil the mission are Billy Chow and the fantastic Yuen Wah. With a line up like that, and Hung calling the shots, excellence is almost guaranteed.

From the moment our 'heroes' parachute into a Vietcong infested jungle, Eastern Condors is non stop brutal action and unmissable fare for those who enjoy their war films violent and unfettered by serious political comment. The bad guys are pure evil (Wah's sniggering fan-waving general is as despicable as they come) and deserve to die. End of story.

And die they do: blasted by machine guns, knifed to death in guerrilla attacks, hacked by machetes, and even killed by imaginative use of jungle flora! In a blistering finale in an underground, missile laden bunker, the surviving good-guys take on the enemy in a vicious showdown that will leave you breathless. Yuen Baio and Sammo take the spotlight in the final fight against Wah and Chow, and the result is some of the best martial arts action ever committed to film. Baio's acrobatic skills are well showcased, whilst Hung, who slimmed down in order to be able to perform more incredible stunts, is on particularly fine form.

Only the occasional 'silly' moment (such as the death of a stuttering character who dies when he fails to reach twenty before opening his parachute),and the rather strange nutter played by Haing S. Ngor (I'm still not sure what the point of his character was) stop me from giving this top marks.

But 9/10 is nothing to be sniffed at, and any fan of the genre should definitely check this one out.

Kind of an Asian cross between "The Dirty Dozen" and "Rambo II", "Eastern Condors" features wow! martial arts moves by Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and company, gunfights, explosions, and gore galore. As per usual, the action is better staged, more violent, more politically incorrect (the kids playing Russian Roulette with the captives),and more over-the-top than the American action films from the same era (the body count goes well into the hundreds). It also features one of the most badass (and thus, by definition, one of the sexiest) female characters ever to appear in a war film (Joyce Godenzi). A blast (many blasts, more accurately). *** out of 4.