Hong Jinbao is one of the most famous martial arts superstars in the Chinese film industry, in the 1980s and 1990s, he self-directed and self-starred in "Loser Boy", "Strange Tricks and Five Lucky Stars", "Beware of Small Hands", "Oriental Condor", "Dragon Drama Phoenix" and so on, all of which are regarded as action movie classics by film fans.
But martial arts stars are also mortals, as long as they are mortals, they will always face the day of aging. In 2016, in the blink of an eye, Hong Jinbao has stepped into the age of 64, which is past the time for many action filmmakers to continue to exert their skills, but Hong Jinbao still insists on fighting at this time and launches an action movie with the meaning of "Sunset Song" - "My Secret Agent Grandpa".
This film is Hong Jinbao's 19-year director after 1997's "A Good Man". The story tells that Lao Ding, a retired bodyguard played by Hong Jinbao, lost his granddaughter due to amnesia, and after returning to his hometown in northeast China alone, he met the neighbor little girl Chunhua (Chen Peiyan) and gradually became a friend of the year, and treated her as his own granddaughter.
Unexpectedly, Chunhua's father, Lee Jeong-joo (Andy Lau), is a professional gambler who was killed due to a dispute with the local gang, and seeing chunhua disappear, Lao Ding suspected that the gang members had abducted her, so he decided to break into the other side's lair alone and fight with the gang members and another wave of Russian gangsters who broke in. After a fierce fight, it was found that Chunhua's "disappearance" was just a oolong, and Lao Ding's amnesia became more and more serious, and since then, the two have also lived together.
The main story line of the film rescues the little girl will make people can't help but think of Uncle, Hurricane Rescue, This Killer Is Not Too Cold and other movies, although its plot is suspected of piecing and imitating, when seeing the 64-year-old Hong Jinbao is still fighting the screen, and when a person is also a director, actor and action designer, I believe that every kung fu fan's heart will still be moved.
In particular, in the end, Lao Ding used anti-joint techniques to knock down the evil people one by one, which is not only very much in line with the character's "former bodyguard" identity, but also seems to be a response to the Thai film "Tom Yin Gong" starring Tony Jia - we Chinese martial arts fingers are also very good at designing such action moves!
It is a pity that the plot of the film is simple not to say, and the screenwriter's dramatic arrangement of the little girl Chunhua's disappearance and inexplicable return is very sloppy, so objectively speaking, this also makes Lao Ding's motivation and reason for fighting to save Chunhua not play a good role in fully venting the audience's emotions, in addition, the film needs to set the story place in the northeast region because of the plot, but because the lead actor is after all an old face of Hong Kong films that everyone is already very familiar with, under the "inappropriate gap", it is inevitable that people will be played.
Judging from the film's promotional posters and early trailers, it makes people feel that this "My Secret Agent Grandpa" is a standard top action blockbuster, but in fact, the real fight scene in the film is only 30 minutes at the end of the film, and the rest of the film is mostly literary drama, especially the relationship between Lao Ding and Chunhua accounts for most of the space, and the main reason why many fans do not buy this film is also based on this.
In the finale of the finale battle, Hong Jinbao's moves are also based on upper limb movements and close-quarters combat, it is difficult to see an action display like the one shot in "Oriental Condor", "Rich Train", "Beware of Small Hands" in the past, but think about the hong Jinbao at this time is already very old, the body is not as flexible as before, the move is not as fierce as it was once, and it is forgivable.
Another big regret of this film is that although it has invited Shi Tian and Mai Jia to make special cameos that have long been absent for many years, and also known as the "century gathering" of the members of the Seven Little Fortunes, the appearance of these actors is only acting as a background board, in short, this film is more like Hong Jinbao's own carnival, but also a stop and gaze at the glorious years of the past, from the perspective of film quality, although it is full of feelings, it also makes people feel like "gutter oil fried top steak", so it is not surprising that the score on Douban is not passed. (Eryi)