Review: From Riches to Rags (1977)

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Directed by:
Cast: , ,

Not available in Australia on DVD (to our knowledge)

Mr. ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ doing comedy?! Yeah, this was Woo’s bread and butter in the early days before he really hit his straps with A Better Tomorrow. This may not feel particularly Wooian (yes I made it up, but it may catch on) but it’s not a bad little film. For about the first two thirds it’s quite a nice (but pretty pointless) comedy about two guys trying to get rich; it hints at a deeper meaning (a satire on status and greed) but never really goes anywhere with it. When Ying mistakenly hires an assassin to kill him the emphasis shifts; and we are left with some fairly ordinary slapstick-tinged action (featuring a very odd and slightly nasty mental hospital finale that has some allusions to the later Bullet in the Head)

No-one will be blown away by this, but at least it does prove that there are some hidden goodies in the Woo canon.

6 One Hundred Dozen Roses out of 10.
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