I wanted to like "Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon" (aka "Shou hu fei long"). I really did. But the movie was just a swing and a miss for me. The storyline never really caught my interest, and the entire movie felt like something you had already seen in other movies.

The storyline, while it failed to appeal to me, was fairly straight forward, if not overly generic for a comedy of this type.

And oddly enough, even with a cast that included Sammo Kam-Bo Hung and Karl Maka in the lead roles, then the movie turned out to be bland for me. In fact, I ended up turning it off after about an hour of prolonged viewing, where it felt like I was getting nowhere in the story.

There are lots of comedies in this particular genre, and "Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon" was just too generic and sort of just floated away quietly in the tsunami of these movies that were readily made in the early 1990s.

My rating of "Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon" is a four out of ten stars. I have no intention of returning to finish watching the movie, because there simply is no point of doing so for me.

SKINNY TIGER, FATTY DRAGON is a film that's made in the mould of the LUCKY STARS movies, featuring plenty of comedy mixed with action spills on the frenetic streets of Hong Kong. This one features genre stalwart Sammo Hung as a by-the-book cop who teams up with maverick Karl Maka (MAD MISSION) to tackle a ruthless criminal gang who have a habit of bumping off anybody who dares to cross them.

What this all leads to is a series of set-pieces, some of them martial arts focused, some of them featuring some very broad comedy indeed, and others that successfully mix the two genres in one (the car chase, for instance, which is very well achieved). Some of the gags are a little too much for Western audiences (the violence and sexual assaults against women in particular) but others hit the spot nicely.

The martial arts stuff is inevitably fine, most of it left to Sammo who wipes the floor with his enemies with a level of finesse that most slim martial artists would struggle to achieve. I could have done without the silly dubbed-in Bruce Lee noises on the soundtrack every time he fights, but there you go. Karl Maka is on strong form here too, not too annoying as the dedicated cop determined to sort out both the bad guys and his love life along the way.

All in all there's little to dislike, whether it's the familiar faces (including femme fatale Carrie Ng) to the explosive stunts and high class fisticuffs. It all works to a formula but it's an effective formula and one that's guaranteed to wring every drop of excitement and humour from the premise. Not one of the genre classics then, but not bad at all either.

Fairly successful kung-fu action installment from director, actor etc. Sammo Hung. This film, (which is pretty much an action buddy-movie),has several problems, but *just* makes it over the line due to the excellent action-choreography and stunt work.

Sammo plays a cop with a Bruce Lee obsession. It's never really explained why he does, or demonstrated too clearly either - rather, he is only shown fighting in the style of Bruce Lee. This may be difficult to spot for beginners in the genre, but Sammo makes quite an excellent impersonation throughout the action sequences. The non-action scenes are played regularly, however.

I found most of the humour fairly broad and dated - Sammo's partner played by Karl Maka really is quite annoying. Lau Kar Wing however is particularly awesome as a villain. His fight sequences with Sammo are really worth the wait.

The main problem with the film is it's dramatic structure. I grew impatient with some of the plot devices used, not to mention some of the drawn-out and seemingly irrelevant ones. It is a fairly convoluted story, and Sammo's typical mix of drama, comedy and action is not as successful as say "Wheels on Meals" or "Dragons Forever".