Righting Wrongs (1986)

In this remarkable take on the vigilante genre, producers Yuen Biao and Corey Yuen assembled some of the best martial arts practitioners from Hong Kong and North America to lock horns. With an ultra-grim tale of good guys gone bad, the film explodes with enough frenzied fights and spectacular stunts to send Charles Bronson running for cover.

RIGHTING WRONGS is Hong Kong’s answer to Hollywood’s DIRTY HARRY and Charles Bronson vigilante films. The story itself is a rather bleak portrayal of police corruption and civil apathy. Eventually all of the main characters are willing to bend the law to varying degrees to suit their needs. Yet the price to pay is high as few players remain alive by the end. In fact, the original Cantonese version was bleak enough to warrant shooting new scenes for the international version.

In the film, Yuen Biao stars in one of his best dramatic action roles. He’s Hsia Ling-cheng, an idealistic Hong Kong prosecutor who becomes fed up with the limits of judicial process when a crime boss responsible for the murder of an entire family escapes imprisonment. Using combat and ninja-like skills that are never explained in the movie, Ling-cheng takes matters into his own hands by assassinating the crime boss.

Ling-cheng is later caught with incriminating evidence of the murder of a second crime boss by Hong Kong detective Cindy Shih (Cynthia Rothrock), who has teamed up with her partner Bag Egg (Corey Yuen) to solve the first murder. The only problem for Ling-cheng is that he didn’t kill the second man, but a corrupt and vicious police captain named Wang (Melvin Wong) did. When Cindy’s partner and a young witness to the crime are both murdered, Cindy and Ling-cheng abandon legal process altogether and both go gunning for Wang.

Yuen Biao is at his peak here, having recently turned in excellent performances in Sammo Hung’s EASTERN CONDORS and THE MILLIONAIRE’S EXPRESS. Being one of Yuen’s best showcase films, RIGHTING WRONGS features a number of terrific sequences that have him nimbly ducking speeding cars, leaping off buildings, trading blows with Cynthia Rothrock, and engaging in a glass-shattering brawl with Peter Cunningham. The combination of Yuen Biao and Corey Yuen as director is pure dynamite.

One of the unique features of this film is the choice of cast. A number of American actors, namely Rothrock, Cunningham and an equally devastating Karen Shepherd, move just as good as their experienced Asian counterparts. This is thanks in part to the incredible choreography of Corey Yuen, who makes everyone look their best.

Rothrock was a world champion martial artist whose mastery of wushu, Eagle Claw and northern Shaolin kung fu gave her a distinct advantage over other American martial arts film stars when it came to fitting into the Hong Kong mold. While her subsequent American films suffered due to inferior choreography, Rockrock’s performance in RIGHTING WRONGS remains a testament to her potential on screen and is perhaps her best role overall.

Cunningham and Shepherd have both appeared in only several inferior American films. But once again with the right direction, these two give Yuen Biao and Rothrock a run for their money in two excellent fight scenes. A great highlight is the match up between Shepherd and Rothrock. These are two ladies who had previously sparred professionally provide a killer onscreen match involving a chain whip. Rothrock considers it to be the best all-female screen duel and all bias aside, she could be right.

Melvin Wong is the film’s main fighting villain. He’s a terrific baddie who offers a fierce and bloody finale, first against Rothrock and then against Yuen Biao.

Providing a bit of humor to balance out the otherwise dark mood of the movie is director Corey Yuen himself, who plays the slovenly police officer Bad Egg. He has an interesting father-son relationship with the great Wu Ma, while showing that he’s a capable actor himself, in addition to being one of the world’s finest action directors.

Production-wise, RIGHTING WRONGS is very impressive by Hong Kong standards and holds up very well today. In addition to predictably fine fight choreography, the movie contains some eye-popping stunt work involving exploding air planes, flipping cars and a daring finale where Yuen Biao himself dangles from an airplane in flight. There are a few rough spots. Male stunt doubles for Rothrock and Shepherd are easy to spot, especially on DVD. In fact, a freeze frame at one point clearly reveals that Yuen Biao stands in for Rothrock during her mahjong parlor fight.

Another issue is with the visible wire that briefly holds up Yuen Biao during a shot simulating his fall from an airplane. Ironically, this simple and very short shot proved to be the most dangerous of the actor’s career when the cable snapped several stories from the ground. Yuen narrowly missed becoming paralyzed due to his awkward landing on a stack of boxes.

Even though this film appears visually attached to the ’80s, RIGHTING WRONGS is still great to watch and remains a great introduction to the world of Hong Kong action cinema when real stunt work was still king. The fights are well paced and intense with terrific performances by all the martial arts stars. Thankfully, this tempers a dismal story of vengeance where righting a wrong doesn’t make a right and the only rule is that everybody dies.