This was director John Woo’s last picture before making his big international breakthrough with Chow Yun Fat in A Better Tommorow. Woo follows a scruffy crew of Chinese mercenaries led by Eddie Ko Hung (Swordsman III: The East is Red) as they run an ultra-violent gauntlet through the jungle into the Golden Triangle, on a mission to arrest a drug cartel leader. Things fall apart in spectacularly bloody fashion, with an insanely sadistic Vietnamese general (Lam Ching-Ying, the one-eyebrow priest of the Mr. Vampire series) going up against Ko Hung and his men. Relentlessly downbeat, with a reputation as filmmaker Woo’s most gruesomely harrowing effort (e.g. eyeballs shot out, eyelids sewn shut, etc.,).
“Horrifically gory and violent… All the basic ingredients that gel in A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in the Head, and The Killer are present…And just like Shakespeare fans ignore Titus Andronicus, most Woo fans have skipped over this mean-spirited little number in favor of his higher profile, more stylish films. And you know, just like I love Titus Andronicus, I love this film.” – Teleport City
