| Danny Lee was well into his transformation into the movie cop acting for the real life cops and a very apparent support seems to be in place for Road Warriors as Lee portrays the bike cops trials and tribulations. Taking time to highlight routines before duty, routine during duty, put up factoids on screen about the subjects, one can understand Lee's desire to paint an image of a civil servant but it does harm Road Warriors in a sense that it's a late starter. A very basic but sufficient plot soon takes shape about the fast speeding antics of Tony Wong (Billy Ching), son of a wealthy adult magazine publisher (James Wong). Tony evades the police thanks to his father's wealth but when he causes an accident that leaves several children dead, the police do everything they can within the law to have him taken away. Faring poorly in that regard, it has to take several more unlawful acts before the fractions of the police (led by Li, played by our director) realizes someone needs to step outside the frames of the law to punish rightfully...
Therefore giving us a taste of law the harsh Lee-way, his character is still the voice of reason amongst a torn group of mostly young cops and the message about standing together certainly feels more balanced than later flicks such as Twist where it was open season on interrogating in just about every way conceivable. However come ending time, controversy sets in that feels like Lee's venting in future flicks. Lee does effectively set up the urban nature of the story however, featuring the ordinary people trying to make a living, the cops in need of acting as role models (again, the ending seems to correspond little to this prior notion and does ring false) and for once it's not gun wielding gangsters to take down. Effective pushes into the tragic and thankfully playing the events out straight, Road Warriors is merely decent, a bit askew but also balanced in the way that it's not playing a commercial game. Jamie Luk, Shing Fui-On, Parkman Wong, Ken Lo and Liu Wai-Hung also turn up. |
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