User reviews

I really like this beautifully shot and choreographed action-fantasy/time travel yarn from Clarence Fok, the director of the moody "Gun and Rose" and the highly regarded "Naked Killer". It is an ambitious, rich production that boasts several stunning martial arts sequences and not a few jaw-dropping stunts. It is such an aesthetically rich and varied piece of entertainment that it never fails to please.

Yuen Biao plays the film's hero, a Ming Dynasty palace guard who resumes his pursuit of a nasty rapist/butcher, the great Yuen Wah ("Eastern Condors"), in the 20th century after their bodies, long encased in ice, are thawed. There are elements of Schepisi's wonderful "Iceman" here and aspects borrowed from Mulcahey's "Highlander", but, despite the film's varied influences, this is a fresh, fascinating synthesis of its raw elements and a damn great example of energetic film-making.

Biao is excellent as the naive palace guard who comes into contact with sweet-natured callgirl Maggie Cheung. He is totally believable as the fish out of water and stunning when asked to demonstrate his extraordinary physical skills. A fight atop a crane is masterful, as is a snow-bound sword fight, a duel inside a museum and a heart-stopping leap over a speeding car on a freeway. Yuen Wah, whose character warms immediately to 20th century firearms and criminality, is also amazing in his demanding, bone-punishing role.

Fok, who always brings a strong visual style to his movies, directs the sometimes brutal action with consummate professionalism and fills the cast list with memorable character actors and assorted beauties. A great score helps, too.

A gem.

Most fans of martial arts films can never understand why Yuen Biao somehow never made the big time like Jackie Chan or Jet Li. He came from the same background had a boyish charisma and charm shown to great effect in this film. His athletic abilities are legendary and the fights here show he had real martial arts abilities. This film has genuine comic moments and to my mind Maggie Cheung gives one of her best ever performances as the hooker /model with a heart of gold. Wah Yuen is a great evil brother and the final fight is surely one of the best recorded. OK the effects are fairly poor even for 1989 but the stunts are terrific. My Hong Kong Legends has good interviews with Yuen (where he shows the snow burns he got making this film) and Wah and a very clear print. An underrated film from an underrated artist.

Excellent movie, in my opinion. I like Yuan Biao's kung-fu better than Jackie Chan's and the humor in this movie is excellent. Luckily, it seems to transfer into English well, so you can have fun even with just subtitles. The movie has enough dark moments (not child-safe) to remind you what the stakes are, the love interest between Yuan Biao and Maggie Cheung is touching and poignant, and the kung-fu action is excellent.

But it is important to remember that there are certain conventions in Honk Kong action flicks. It's also important to know which kind this is: mainly fist/leg action, with a little wire-work that doesn't detract from the excellent fight choreography. Heck, there's some decent sword-work in this one, too, which is a nice bonus in my opinion.

But "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Farewell My Concubine" it is not. Don't expect a deep movie that will change your life, and you won't be disappointed. Expect a decent kung-fu movie with humorous touches and serious issues and you'll probably be satisfied.

"Iceman Cometh" starts out as a manhunt by Ming royal guard Yuen Biao after a rapist-killer of thirteen women in the royal palace, including a relative of the emperor. The guard is transported along with the killer to a snow covered area by a Tibetan wheel with time travel properties. After the two are frozen in the snow, a scientific expedition finds them years later and brings their frozen bodies back to modern Hong Kong. The guard and killer are accidentally thawed out, and the guard ends up getting involved with a call girl (Maggie Cheung)

Maggie Cheung steals every scene she is in. Yuen Biao is tops in action scenes with his opponent, the actor who played Panther in "Supercop," but Biao is no match for Maggie. She uses him first as a housekeeper to clean up her messy apartment, then as an enforcer to shake down her clients for additional payoff money. She is the one with most of the problems, from a pimp who threatens to throw acid in her face if she doesn't go out with a client to her later run in with the rapist murderer.

The movie also has some nice technical effects when the Tibetan wheel goes into its time traveling mode at the end of the movie, but the real special effect is Maggie Cheung's acting range. She can project some personality on the screen.

Opera School colleagues Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah face off in this action/drama film, (oh, and Maggie Cheung tags along for good measure). This film has seems to have slipped off the radar somewhat, but if you manage to see it, you'll find it has some very powerful moments.

The scope of the film is huge. We start off in Imperial China (the Ming Dynasty), where we are introduced to the characters of Fong Sau-Ching (Biao), and Fung San (Wah) - perfect symbols of good and evil respectively. As in real life, the two are 'brothers', in that they have trained and lived together as Royal Guards. However, Fung has become corrupted, and is a known rapist and murderer. Fong must capture him within twenty days, or face execution himself.

Did I mention that they travel into the future Hong Kong, the year 1989? Well they do via a Buddhist Wheel - a kind of primitive Delorian (but built sturdier).

This film is by no means perfect, but it's main draw-cards are the exquisitely choreographed (though all too rare) action sequences, and the overall excellent production values. The performances vary somewhat, (Yuen Wah is maybe a little too comical in his delivery), but the film is ripe with powerful scenes and a surprising amount of subtext, if you're willing to look for it.

The most interesting contrast the film makes is between the past and the (then) present. We find that honour, loyalty, and friendship mean totally different things in the modern age, and Biao's character has the most difficulty adjusting to his surroundings. Wah's character however (rapist, thief, murderer) adjust very quickly, and has even managed to adopt the most cutting-edge in fashion. The subtle distinctions drawn between Hong Kong and the Mainland are also of interest - though how relevant they are today I cannot say.

Clarence Fok has undertaken a very ambitious task here - a film that deals with so much (in my mind) cannot succeed in every area. However, it does succeed in the most important areas for me, and I can only recommend at least one viewing. It does, however, seem to improve with multiple viewings. The rich visuals and and action sequences alone make this a stand-out from it's era.

This 1989 movie was actually a nice surprise, and for some reason then I have never actually gotten around to watching it, despite me being a fan of Maggie Cheung.

So after having seen it yesterday, I must say that "The Iceman Cometh" (aka "Ji dong ji xia") was quite a good and entertaining movie. And it was somewhat of a deviant from the typical movies that made it out of the Hong Kong cinema during the late 1980's. And that was, in my opinion, a very good thing.

The story in "The Iceman Cometh" is about Fong Sau-Ching, a Ming Dynasty royal guard (played by Biao Yuen) who is sent out to capture notorious killer and rapist Fung San (played by Wah Yuen). They fight it out and plummet to an icy death from a mountainside. Centuries later two men are found embedded in ice and brought to a Hong Kong museum. Here they are accidentally thawed up and brought back to life, rendering the two residents of the Ming Dynasty to be let loose in modern day Hong Kong.

The story was entertaining, albeit it wasn't original, and it had been seen before in Western cinema. But still, it turned out to be a good story and director Yiu-Leung Fok did manage to put together a nice movie.

It should be said that the movie was really well-carried by the three stars on the cast list; that being Biao Yuen, Wah Yuen and Maggie Cheung.

"The Iceman Cometh" will captivate you from the very beginning and it stays interesting and well-paced throughout the entire course of the movie, which is good, as the audience is kept in an icy grip.

I was genuinely entertained by "The Iceman Cometh" and wish that I had gotten around to watching it earlier, especially since I have had the DVD in my collection for about a decade.

"The Iceman Cometh" is a movie that will have some appeal even to audiences not usually keen on the Hong Kong cinema. And if you are a fan of the Hong Kong cinema, then do yourself a favor and get around to watching "The Iceman Cometh" if you haven't already seen it. You are missing out on a good movie.

I am a big fan of Yuen Biao, and I had heard that Iceman Cometh was supposed to be *the* Yuen Biao movie, with a great leading performance and some spectacular kung fu. I finally found the DVD a couple of days ago - and unfortunately I was quite disappointed. Yuen Biao is certainly not bad - far from it -, but the movie actually doesn't have that much fighting in it, and the story, while moderately entertaining, does lack a good deal of charisma. The comedy is fair but not great, and there are some really nasty scenes of violence. All in all, not a very well-balanced product.

As a Yuen Biao movie, it certainly falls grievously short of classics like Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain and Prodigal Son. Maggie Cheung is not bad here, either, but doesn't manage to make the movie look better than it is.

Iceman Cometh reminds more than a little of the similarly themed 1991 Hong Kong movie Kung Fu Vs. Acrobats (Ma deng ru lai shen zhang), in which Yuen Wah also plays the bad guy, and which I've rated a 6. Iceman Cometh deserves the same grade. But since I had much higher hopes for Iceman Cometh, I can't help being somewhat disappointed.

i thought this movie was a GREAT one. Its about a hero and a villain from ancient china getting teleported to modern times. Storyline is definitely good for action movies. The acting was great as Maggie Cheung put up a charismatic performance as usual, Yuen Biao was wonderful at acting like a conservative ancient times man, clueless about modern times. Wah Yuen was one of the coolest villains I've ever seen, You just cant help but like him. The fighting scenes were great and kept you glued to your seat unlike a lot of other kung fu movies. Overall this was an amazing movie, i wouldn't even think about giving it less than a 9

I'm not really sure why Yuen Biao never had the same popularity as Jackie or Sammo, after films like 'Project A' and 'Wheels on Meals', one would think that Yuen would become just as big of a name as those other two. I did watch 'Righting Wrongs' not too long ago and sadly it wasn't a memorable film, but probably most because of the direction and also that they had taken out most of the comedy from that film. This film however is like the good old Hong Kong action comedy you're used with from Jackie and it shows both Yuen's comedic skills as well as his amazing martial art.

The story is a crazy mix between Highlander, Demoliton Man and Terminator with two men from a different time ending up in present time, one good and one really bad. We get to see some silly, cute scenes with Yuen's character trying to accept and learn the customs of today's society and also a bit of romantic comedy with Maggie Cheung, done like they only do it in Hong Kong, mostly portraying the woman as a liar, a cheater or someone with a bad personality and only becomes good when she got to prove her love for her hero. It's a dated view on women, but you just have to accept the film for what it is - I don't think many people would watch this film for the romantic parts.

What everyone should watch this film for, is the great action between Yuen and Wah Yuen (the landlord from Kung Fu Hustle) playing the baddest of the bad, a rapist and a murderer, brutally murdering the people he rape by breaking their arms and legs, it a bit too much sometimes, but also the bigger reasons why Yuen is in such a hurry to stop him.

I was very entertained by the film and even chuckled a couple of times through the film. I can only hope it will get a proper release on bluray someday so it gain some more popularity to show off what Yuen Biao did when he wasn't doing films with Jackie and Sammo. I would warmly recommend this film.

During the eighties, Hong Kong cinema had some of the most enjoyable action films on the planet, and this was one of them.

Basically the plot revolves around two soldiers, one good and one bad, fighting to the death and being frozen in ancient china. They are then thawed out in the eighties, forced to battle once again but now with greater powers.

Although a great deal of the film is based on how the two soldiers react to there new surroundings, with some interesting results, the film is more about the action sequences, which are all pretty impressive. It has to be said that the final sword battle between the two foes is one of my favourite sequences in history, even though it is clearly a rip off of highlander. Of course, like many Hong Kong flicks, it is done 10 times better then the American version. This is a pretty good way to introduce yourself to Hong Kong cinema.

Asia style ... also without a car/DeLorean. So no pun intended is what I am trying to say of course. Yuen Biao - if you don't know who that is ... well you have quite the homework to do. Most people do know Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen as of late ... some also have heard of Sammo Hung and some others, but Yuen Biao seems to be the oddity that only certain people know ... or rather knew. Because with all these movies coming out on Blu Ray (maybe even 4k), a lot of new people will discover this amazing human being.

I mean someone who body doubled for his co-stars (like Cynthia Rothrock) ... you got to love this guy. He also has body doubles in some scenes, though does most of his own stunts. The great thing about this movie is, that he knew his co-star for a long time. So the fight scenes are amazing as you can imagine. Then there is the stunts in general ... most done without a legal permission. Like the horse riding thing on the streets.

Then there is the car hopping scene ... so many great scenes. There is of course language that may make you cringe ... but if you can overlook that ... if you can endure that and not be too sensible about it ... there is a lot to enjoy here. A lot of fun and a lot of action ... right no.

WOW!!! This movie is incredible. It has two of the most underrated martial artists. They are Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah. When these two go head to head...everything breaks lose. Do not let the title fool you. This has a bit comedy and alot of martial arts combat. Two opponents (once friends) travel across time from the Ming Dynasty to modern (1987) Hong Kong. Most of the film focuses on Yuen Biao and the ever beautiful Maggie Cheung. When we see how bad guy Yuen Wah has adapted to modern day tools of murder and mayhem...the fists and feet fly. I don't want to give away too much of the plot. However, the time travel device is a Buddhist "wheel" that when a Black Buddah is inserted as the key...time travel is possible. The end fight between Yuen and Yuen is one to see. Check it out.

Just watched this film for the first time last night. Loved it. It was so funny. And Yuen Biao was awesome as the hero....and Yuen Wah was great as the villain as well...he plays the villain in a bunch of martial Arts films....he's great at it. Highly recommend to watch this with friends late at night.

This is a cheesy but enjoyable film about two warriors who live in the Ming Dynasty and quite simply - one is good, the other a womanising rapist. They get transported into modern day Hong Kong where the main character ends up meeting a prositute (Maggie Cheung) who hires him as her servant to do some chores around the house as well as being her bodyguard.

This is a film not to be taken seriously and you'll enjoy it the more if you don't. It is a no brainer action comedy flick that has a silly plot that works well in this type of genre. Maggie Cheung is terrific as the self centred prostitute who just doesn't really konw what to do with her life and Biao Yuen as Ching (the protagonist) is pretty good in his role and both of the leads work well together The action scenes are the sort you sort of expect in the Hong Kong action film and they remain believable if slightly outrageous. Essentially what makes the story work is its humour and I wasn't expecting this to be a comedy at all - in fact I think I must have not read the blurb at the back of the DVD cover properly as I didn't realise Ching was going to be transported to another era - and it surprised me the more when I watched it.

Check it out - it's a good film. Sure it's not a masterpiece nor will it be helmed as one of the greatest movies of our time but for what it is worth - it is worth the watch.

This is a fantasy action film from Hong Kong, starring Yuen Biao as Ming Dynasty royal guard named Fong Sau-Ching, who got frozen in time after a fierce battle with the evil Fung San (Yuen Wah). After many years, both Fong and Fung have been thawed out in modern Hong Kong, where they continue their battle.

This movie is chock full of martial arts action, from Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah duking it out in the Ming Dynasty to modern day Hong Kong. It's really smashing and edge-of-your-seat excitement seeing these two martial arts greats do their amazing stunt work.

Caught in the middle of the centuries-old duel is call girl Polla (Maggie Cheung), who takes in Fong at her home. Seeing Fong try to assimilate and adjust living life in the modern day was pretty hilarious. But, much of the comic relief came from Maggie Cheung, who gave a rather dramatic but sassy performance at the same time. There were some touching chemistry between the two as well.

Yuen Wah as the villain offers up some dark moments in the film as well, being a merciless attacker and all-around bad guy - somebody you would love to root against. I do think, though, that Wah's character was overkill and over dramatic at times.

Rounding up the cast of characters are cameo appearances from a host of Hong Kong actors, from Elvina Kong to Elvis Tsui, and from Stanley Fung to Corey Yuen. Fun stuff here! Grade A-

Yuen Biao is the most underrated martial artist of his generation. In my opinion his acrobatic skills outdo both Jackie Chan and Jet Lee although for some reason he isn't as highly rated as JC and JL. This film, his finest, is actually a sort of sci fi/fantasy film. He stars as a warrior of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century. He and his adversary are fighting and they both fall of a cliff and are frozen; only to be found in the 20th century by scientists and accidentally unfrozen. This film with it's fantasy plot could have been his worst but with his acting, the fighting and the outrageous comedy with the lovely femme fetale Maggie Cheung this is a modern and all time classic. The things Yuen Biao does in this film show why I rate his acrobatic skills higher than JC and JL. The comedy interplays with violent action with Yuen Wah's performance as a sadistic villain spot on. The script is pretty intelligent and the jokes come thick and fast making fun of the late 1980s seen through the 16th century eyes of Yuen Biao who discovers television, electricity and... toilets. The jokes however aren't as glaringly obvious as Jackie Chan and some (very few) Jet Lee films (as very few Jet Li films are comedic if any); the humour is like an episode of The Simpsons, you have to recognise them but when you do they are really funny and actually very intelligent and heartwarming jokes. Maggie Cheung is absolutely brilliant in surely an Oscar winning role as the hard hearted hooker with a soft inside, she shows here that only she could have played this role perfectly. However Yuen Biao just steals the show from Maggie Cheung with his portrayal of a serious but innocently funny warrior. Also the chemistry between Yuen Biao and Maggie Cheung is absolutely electric, they really do sizzle when they are both on screen together. Also unlike Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung films the humour is played with a straight face throughout and this film is the better for it. A modern classic with some great humour fused with some violent fights and the best acting I have ever seen. The ending also has a wonderful bitter-sweet denouement. One more thing is the soundtrack. It is absolutely wonderful and the best bits are the xylophone and the violin when Yuen Biao messes up some very simple house tasks. Surely this film defined the words "all time classic".

Yuen Biao is a highly underrated actor for his time, his acrobatic skill and comic timing are so much better than Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung or Jet Li.

This movie trys to do sci fi kung fu and ends up looking cheap n nasty. Similar to Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain but not as good.

Don't get me wrong all the action scenes are awesome no doubt due to Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah, but the story isn't (Ming dynasty guard teleported into the future to capture a criminal). Comedy is different from his usual methods too, not as good in my opinion.

Well worth a watch for any fan and if your looking for excellent Biao movie watch Prodigal Son or Kickboxer or Dreadnaught or Knockabout (and plenty others). You wont be disappointed if you like quick action and quick laughs :).