A police officer (Sammo Hung) who quit the force after his partner is murdered teaches four youths how to kill in order to fight crime on his terms. The assassins are set lose on a triad boss in Hong Kong, but something goes terribly wrong when the four turn their guns on police and innocent bystanders.

Still sporting the gray tuft of hair that marked his two years in Martial Law in the States, Sammo Hung returned to Chinese filmmaking by appearing in The Hidden Enforcers following smaller roles in The Avenging Fist and The Legend of Zu. This low-budget film from writer/producer Nam Yin (Troublesome Night series) is a very questionable exploration of morality, or lack thereof when four young adults go on a misguided killing spree. This is not the sort of heroic or comedic action film that Sammo Hung fans are used to. Hong Kong’s ‘Big Brother’ takes a dive in a film that dwells far below his abilities as an actor and an action director.

Nam uses a well-tread theme of innocent young people being trained for assassinations. The most recent is Wong Jing’s Naked Weapon (2002). But instead of doing evil, these kids are supposed to kill criminals. As a former police officer who lost a partner and saw another lose his arm to criminals that slipped through the justice system, Sammo retreats to Thailand for ten years to raise four adopted children in the ways of gun-handling and kung fu. Now early on there is some effort to show that something isn’t right with the way these kids react to killing, but it just looks like bad acting. (I use the term ‘kids’ loosely. One of them appears to be at least 25.) The four are sent to kill a wild animal and do so with no reservations. Sammo and his partner, a woman whose husband had once been murdered send the four to assassinate a local drug lord. The job gets done, but it’s a sloppy mess that requires the elder woman’s intervention. Not deterred, Sammo and his band of gun-totting proteges head to Hong Kong for a little payback against the crime boss who once killed Sammo’s partner. If the first hit was rough around the edges, this one becomes a monumental disaster. The crime boss is successfully murdered by the kids, but so are several police officers who arrive at the scene. The situation only gets worse when they hide out at a disco and have a run in with another one of Sammo’s former partners who responds to a tip as the police scour the city for the cop killers. The officer is shot dead. One of the kids is shot dead. The three remaining killers make their getaway to the outskirts of the city. If you think this is bad, from here on it almost becomes surreal. The killers kidnap a shop owner and demand that he takes them to the nearest beach believing that they will be able to reunite with Sammo. Sammo arrives alright, but not before the crime boss’s thugs conveniently show up, followed by Sammo’s lady friend. A lot of shooting, killing, and a little kung fu later we’re at a very unsatisfying ending that seems to say that wanton killing deserves no punishment as long as you are ignorant of the consequences.

Something happened at the end of this film that never occurs when I’m watching a Hong Kong film. I shot out of my chair and cursed the screen as the credits ran. I was angry, an indication that the director had done at least one thing right and that’s pull the strings of his audience. But my anger rose from what I perceived to be a lapse of sound judgment on Nam’s part. What was he trying to say with this disturbing little piece of filth? Watch one of the assassins blast a hole in a small child at point blank range and then watch him jogging up and down a beach at the end of the film as Sammo looks on. Sure, Sammo nearly killed these kids when he discovered all they had done, but he accepts that he make the mistake of not teaching them right from wrong and then has them resume their training! Rubbish.

Here’s another way to look at it. Had Sammo played a seriously dysfunctional “stepfather” with issues of his own that clearly led the kids astray, we could have had a very interesting psychological drama with some action on our hands. But there is no such depth. Sammo is simply a generic guy who uses the kids to get revenge and ends up paying for it by losing all of his remaining friends. And all of these kids act like they have severe Asperger’s Syndrome by having absolutely no concept of how their actions are being perceived by others. Why bother even casting four people when they act and think alike. There are minor attempts to break out of simple characterizations here and there, but it is futile.

For martial arts action all you need watch is the opening and closing scenes, although you’re better off just watching a Sammo Hung classic like Pedicab Driver (1989) or The Magnificent Butcher (1979). Everything else in the film is all gory gun battles where guns magically reload themselves and their users apparently sweat bullets, for there is no shortage of ammunition until the end. The scenes are shot more authentically with none of that exaggerated slow motion stuff. I will credit Nam for keeping the film’s visual style grounded in reality, even while the story is perforated with plot holes. Sammo performs some quality kung fu at the end, but by that time you won’t be rooting for anyone and this sours the experience.

I think it is fair to say that The Hidden Enforcers is a lousy project for Sammo Hung to be associated with. It makes it only harder to watch one of the greatest martial arts filmmakers ever continue his professional decline. He deserves better. I know he tends to gravitate towards darker roles than his pal Jackie, but this film is just mindlessly distressing. If you are going to make a film that challenges your viewers’ sense of justice and morality, then at least make it a thoughtful and carefully crafted work, not some half-baked, dramatic morass of undefined motivations and violence for shock value.

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