Rating: B-
Dir: Yuen Wo Ping
Star: Kenny Ho, Christy Chung, Siu-Tin Lei, Habby Heske
Under Siege, Hong Kong style, with Ho in the Steven Segal role, and Chung (why do I want to say Christy Canyon?) as Erika Eleniak — the only real difference is it’s robbers on a cruise boat, rather than terrorists on a warship. Actually, given all this, it may be clser to Jackie Chan’s City Hunter. Anyway, it benefits from a deficit of slack; less than 15 minutes are used on scene-setting and wrapping things up.
Otherwise, it rattles from action set-piece to set-piece, slowed only occasionally by Cheung’s regrettable acting attempts, though she’s decorative enough to pass the time. Ho has all the right moves, and director Yuen is a veteran of this sort of thing and could probably do it in his sleep. Surprisingly sadistic, thanks largely to the wonderfully villainous Elaine Lui (nice to see her back, since her career seemed to fall away after Angel), this is nothing you won’t have seen before, but it’s definitely above average for its kind.