The Double Crossers
directed by Jeong Chang-hwa
starring Shin Il-ryong, Sammo Hung
Eureka Entertainment
The Double Crossers is a martial arts revenge movie. It is also a ’70s action movie that is also a con artist movie. It is a Hong Kong production that mostly takes place in Singapore and Bali with a Korean leading man. It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping. In short, it is a fabulous Hong Kong grindhouse movie that must’ve been an amazing experience with a half-lit and receptive audience back in the day on the seedy streets of Times Square. When there is an assassination attempt via bazooka in the first 15 minutes, you know what kind of movie it is.
After his parents are brutally murdered, Detective Lung (Shin Il-ryong) discovers that his father used to be a smuggler and his old gang murdered him after he refused to go back into the old business. After trying to take on the gang’s leader, Wang (Chao Hsiung), as a cop, Lung turns in his badge and gun and heads to Bali with one of his father’s old lieutenants. They set up a ruse involving an oil field to get in with Wang and methodically take down members of Wang’s gang. They succeed in framing Wang, but when they try to escape with three million dollars in blood money, Lung and Chang (Chan Sing) must take on the best of Wang’s henchmen, including a Chuck Norris clone and a mustachioed Sammo Hung who, in addition to some un-credited fight choreography, also seems determined to steal every scene he is in. Looking like he wandered in from a Grateful Dead show with a peasant shirt and Fu Manchu mustache, Sammo draws the audience’s attention, even if he is just sitting at a table while the main baddies talk.
The Double Crossers (1976) is a true international production. It was made by a Hong Kong studio, with a South Korean director and star, and mostly filmed in Singapore and Bali. Points in the film feel like a travelog for Bali, with native scenery, music, and dance on full display. The eclectic nature of the film is what helps it stand apart from the glut of similar films being cranked out at the same time. The Double Crossers is more of an action film with martial arts than a true martial arts film. It certainly has far more in common with the American films starring Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson than with The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). It isn’t a great film, but it certainly is a charming film that is an absolute blast to watch.
The Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment includes the Hong Kong theatrical cut and the English dubbed export cut, which features the typical, un-nuanced style of dubbing that most Americans associate with Hong Kong cinema of the era. The film is accompanied by two audio commentaries from three familiar names and voices for Asian film releases, Mike Leeder, Arne Venema, and Frank Djeng. The two commentaries are quite different from each other, with Djeng delivering an entertaining, if information heavy, track, while Leeder & Venema clearly have a ball with a rollicking track where they show their love for film (warts and all) and end up fostering a better understanding of the The Double Crossers and its place in Asian cinema.
