Tiger on Beat

This film showcases HK star Chow Yun Fat as a police sargeant, who is paired up with detective Cho, played by Conan Lee. This film gets less like a comedy as it goes along and becomes a series of fairly violent scenes. This film is better on a big screen for full effect, but its still good. The action is fast paced and the kung fu moves, especially by Conan Lee, are fun to watch. Women are extremely secondary in this film, despite the pretty Nina Li. If you like Stallone type action with some HK acrobatics thrown in, you'll like this. Chow Yun Fat, as anyone knows who has watched him in America, is always an asset to a film. Its not great, its a little too much a few times, but if you like action/police buddy films, you'll like it.

I used to watch this movie with my cousin when we were kids. It's a pretty entertaining cop comedy starring Chow Yun Fat as Sergeant Francis Li Conan Lee as Michael Cho as mismatched detectives who try to solve a case involving a cocaine ring. Nina Li Chi also stars as Marydonna, the woman unfortunate enough to get caught up in the drug ring mix. As mentioned earlier, it's a pretty entertaining old school cop comedy - plenty of good guy vs bad guy action, slapstick moments and even a touch of drama and gloom. The plot is pretty fast-paced and the acting was spot-on. Grade B-

Man this movies chainsaw fighting seen is probably the best their ever will be, if you need any more reason to see it there is something wrong. Good script, good ideas (shotgun on a rope, who would have thought) and good acting, an explosive action packed movie

A pleasant police/buddy comedy starring Chow Yun-Fat and Conan Lee. The requisite action scenes are there as well as a few dramatic moments, but this one is still played more for laughs. It reminded me of a Hong Kong "48 Hrs", but brightened considerably by the two leads. A fun way to waste a couple of hours.

Tiger On Beat may be a lesser known Chow Yun Fat flick, but it's really fantastic and in a lot of ways, unique. Tiger On Beat is HK's answer to buddy cop movies like Lethal Weapon with newcomer Conan Lee and Chow Yun Fat. These two mismatched cops must work together to catch Thai cocaine dealers. The film is very fast paced and funny with some state of the art shoot em ups and even more impressive fight scenes. This was directed by Shaw Brothers veteran Lau Kar Leung ( who directed undisputed Kung Fu classics The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and The 36 Chambers Of Shaolin), he also brought along Norman Chu and Gordon Liu as baddies. The end fight sequence is beyond insane with an epic martial arts fight with chainsaws! Chow Yun Fat is all in for this role, being super goofy and wearing a Hawaiian shirt . The film in general has a mostly lighthearted tone and is very, very 80's. But when the movie switches gears and gets more serious, it seems to do it effortlessly. Tiger On Beat is really great stuff and blows away most American buddy cop movies.

TIGER ON THE BEAT has been described by some as the Hong Kong version of LETHAL WEAPON although to be fair this kind of comic action was doing the rounds in cinemas in the East long before the Mel Gibson flick came out. The movie stars the ubiquitous Chow Yun-Fat as a rookie cop who ends up teaming with a tough acquaintance (NINJA IN THE DRAGON'S DEN's Conan Lee) to tackle a drug-smuggling ring headed by a bunch of foreigners. Where to begin? This film offers an exciting blend of comedy and action, and as is usually the case with such productions, it becomes more and more serious as time goes on. Yun-Fat's supplying the comedy here and is very good when he's drinking raw eggs or using a shotgun on a piece of elastic to eliminate foes (the latter scene has to be seen to be believed). Lee is the hard man who engages in some expertly staged fight scenes which come as no surprise when you find out the director is Lau Kar-Leung. TIGER ON THE BEAT is a particularly well cast film for anyone with an interest in Hong Kong cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. There are supporting parts for the likes of Phillip Ko, Norman Chu, Ti Lung, and David Chiang here, while model-turned-actress Nina Li Chi supplies laughs and glamour as the femme fatale caught up in the mess. KILL BILL's Gordon Liu has an excellent role as the unstoppable chief henchman. Overall, though, - and questionable comedy aside - it's the action that makes this a top film. The fight in the beauty parlour is exemplary, a car and foot chase ably mix laughs and thrills, but the stand-out is the action-packed climax that ends with a chainsaw duel. Incredible stuff that makes this stand out from the crowd.

Tiger On The beat has a standard storyline about 2 policemen, who are partners. It is a fact that foreigners in American films play villains and other bad guys. It is just the same in Tiger On The Beat, and all Americans in this Asian film are villains. Hongkong-movies are known for their high-quality-action-scenes, and Tiger On The Beat doesn`t disappoint. Some of the actors deliver a stiff performance though. 8/10

Tiger on the Beat is one of my favorite Hongkong action movies. It is a great combination of fire- and musclepower. The highlight is an amazing fighting scene where two guys (one of them is Conan Lee) take on each other with chainsaws. One warning for female Chow Yun-Fat fans though, in this movie he beats up a chick real good. Anyway, it's great. Watch it. Now.

'Tiger On The Beat' is considered by some to be the Hong Kong version of 'Lethal Weapon', in which Chow Yun-Fat plays Sergeant Francis Li, a police officer who has not had a promotion in 11 years due to his constantly chasing women with his irrepressible charm instead of knuckling down to his work. His supervisor gives him his big case that he needs to earn a promotion -- a drug heist that may or may not involve a group of local Thais -- and is put with antagonistic martial-arts cop Michael Tso (Conan Lee). Unfortunately, Francis and Michael really do not see eye to eye, and clash frequently over many things. But when things hot up, can they put their differences aside for long enough, especially when their trail leads to that of a possible link to the crime, a woman named Marie-Donna (Nina Li Chi ['Twin Dragons'], who's now best known for being married to Jet Li), is thrown into the mix? This is more of a comedy than an all-out actioner, and some possible unintentional comedy can be found in the 1980's fashions (bright yellow trousers, anyone?). The intentional humour will depend on whether you are watching an English dub (which, like many other English dubs, loses some of that comedy) or its original Cantonese with English subtitles (and those will depend on who released the version you watched). Some of the humour doesn't travel that well outside of the Cantonese-speaking market, but there's still some great one-liners in the version I saw (the DVD release by Hong Kong Legends, which also has an audio commentary from Bey Logan explaining some of the more obscure gags), and one particular one from Chow when up against a Western kung-fu fighter had me in stitches when I first saw it -- just the timing of it! Chow is actually a gifted comedy performer, and for those used to his work in 'The Killer', 'Hard-Boiled' or even 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' may be surprised at this difference. He does still get to do some action himself, though. As with many Hong Kong 1980's movies, the main reason people lapped up these movies was because of the action sequences, and that's largely where Conan Lee comes in, although he really doesn't get that much fighting to do in the movie. He still gets to do a one-on-one encounter with Gordon Liu (recently seen in 'Kill Bill') in which they are both armed with some very unique weapons in one of the most memorable battles of this era (I won't give it away but it's crazy!). Still, there are some bits that make you really wish that things had worked out better for Conan (who's also known as Lloyd Hutchinson in other movies) in terms of his potential career as an action superstar. One thing I should warn women in particular of, however, is a scene where Francis and Marie-Donna have a bit of a disagreement. It's something that played well to local audiences in Hong Kong, but many Westerners may object to it and it may leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth, and it wouldn't surprise me if even some Chinese-speakers found it over-the-top in today's climate. All in all, though, while not completely great, it does have a certain retro charm, and the action in it is enjoyable.

The HK action film had by the mid-80's developed a set of characteristics that hardly varied from film to film. Absurd gun fights, swingy arm kung fu fights with lots of people yanked around on wires to simulate powerful kicks, lots of dangerous stunts frequently involving unprotected falls from balconies or second story windows and plots that shouldn't be dwelled on lest the holes be revealed. This is one of those but with some pluses that lift it above the crowd. Chow Yun Fat plays it light and gives his character an appealing goofiness that carries the entire film. His chemistry with co-star Conan Lee works really well. Anyway the movie deals with drug smugglers and a beautiful mainland Chinese woman whose criminal brother gets her to delivery his stolen illegal drugs. Chow and Lee are cops assigned to the case. The film is very rough at times. The action scenes are frequently bloody and harsh which is in contrast to the light comedy of Chow's scenes. There's a lot of juvenile humor about breasts and a tough scene where Chow's character smacks around the beautiful woman, tosses her through a glass table and stuffs her mouth full of powder. She, of course, falls in love with him. Director Liang, know for his distinctive kung-fu films earlier in the decade, is absolutely invisible in the film. Aside from the well paced fight scenes, his style is not apparent at all. The whole film is very much in debt to Jacky Chan's earlier police films. Not bad if you give it a chance and don't expect too much.