#8 - Stone Age Warriors (1991)
Stone Age Warriors is a fun little trifle directed by Stanley Tong, who would go on to direct Jackie Chan in 4 films including Rumble in The Bronx and Supercop.
Nina Li plays an insurance investigator trying to find out if her client is alive or dead. So she tricks her client's daughter, a kung fu actress played by Elaine Lui, into bringing her to New Guinea to find her father. Once there, they are captured by an aboriginal tribe and find an able martial artist among the tribesmen (played by Fan Siu-Wang of the delirious Story Of Ricky) to help guide them to find their man. Along the way, they encounter mercenaries, animal attacks (including large Komodo dragons), and other tribes, while having slapstick-y adventures.
This is pretty much standard early 90's Hong Kong comedy-action fare, but it's carried off with a little bit more flair than some of the other stuff of this era, and Lui and Fan both do come off pretty bad-ass fighting in the action scenes. There's a little wire work, but not anything on the level that would eventually dominate HK action cinema. The film is notable for filming on location in New Guinea, and also for the fact that Tong did not use doubles for his actresses. Much like his work with Jackie Chan, the film ends with a blooper reel showing some of the perilous stunts that the actresses did.
Unfortunately, this one's pretty obscure. The version I saw of it was the standard in early 90's transfers, with white hardcoded subs that blended into many scenes. Still, it isn't too hard to follow, and if you can find it, you could certainly do worse as far as semi-brainless HK actioners go.
Nina Li plays an insurance investigator trying to find out if her client is alive or dead. So she tricks her client's daughter, a kung fu actress played by Elaine Lui, into bringing her to New Guinea to find her father. Once there, they are captured by an aboriginal tribe and find an able martial artist among the tribesmen (played by Fan Siu-Wang of the delirious Story Of Ricky) to help guide them to find their man. Along the way, they encounter mercenaries, animal attacks (including large Komodo dragons), and other tribes, while having slapstick-y adventures.
This is pretty much standard early 90's Hong Kong comedy-action fare, but it's carried off with a little bit more flair than some of the other stuff of this era, and Lui and Fan both do come off pretty bad-ass fighting in the action scenes. There's a little wire work, but not anything on the level that would eventually dominate HK action cinema. The film is notable for filming on location in New Guinea, and also for the fact that Tong did not use doubles for his actresses. Much like his work with Jackie Chan, the film ends with a blooper reel showing some of the perilous stunts that the actresses did.
Unfortunately, this one's pretty obscure. The version I saw of it was the standard in early 90's transfers, with white hardcoded subs that blended into many scenes. Still, it isn't too hard to follow, and if you can find it, you could certainly do worse as far as semi-brainless HK actioners go.