Director: Peng Tien
Writer: Peng Tien
From: Cult Cinema
Watch: archive.org
A pair of special agents is sent to destroy a drug cartel after an undercover agent is killed.
I don’t have much to say about Hands of Death. The movie doesn’t really have characters, just actors who end up in fight scenes. In fact the movie felt like a beat-em-up video game. Our heroes spawn in the level, they fight off a series of interchangeable goons, and then face off against the level’s boss. In the end the meet up with the big bad, defeat his two bodyguards, and then defeat him. THE END.
Normally I have the super-brief summaries for movies that I kind of hate. There won’t be anything to say about the movie and I was generally bored throughout it. For Hands of Death, I’ll admit to being a little bored, but that’s mostly because I’m interested in story and character moments in movies. This didn’t have any character moments. Initially it seemed like the heroes were going to lurk in the background and spark a clan war amongst the local drug dealers, but that falls by the wayside pretty quickly and it’s just them working their way up the ladder to the head drug dealer.
The movie has style, though, and is a straight-forward action flick. All the fat has been cut away to just leave you with the characters arriving, spotting the villains, and then kicking their asses. The fight sequences were good—well-shot and choreographed—and things moved along well enough. My only disappointment was there was no longer any sense of momentum or space by the halfway point. The movie had just devolved into fight after fight after fight. I never even had a sense of how close they were to the main guy until the final battle and he was sitting there.
Overall, it’s an all right flick. Good fights, zero character, but at least my print was in widescreen. This is a better-than-okay looking movie. Plus, it appears to be in the public domain. I’ve added a copy to archive.org here. I’m sure there are ways you can find to enjoy it.
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