Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #150013 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-11-14
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Japanese
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Tony Leung, star of Hong Kong action movies like Hard-Boiled and Bullet in the Head, stars in Tokyo Raiders along with pop stars Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen. When Macy (Chen) gets jilted at the altar in Las Vegas, she returns to Hong Kong to find her fiancé has disappeared--but in his apartment she finds Yung (Cheng), an interior decorator with surprising kung fu skills. Together they go to Japan, where they meet up with Lin (Leung), a private detective with an entourage of kung fu babes and stories that don't quite add up. From there, the plot gets more and more incomprehensible. It has something to do with counterfeit yen and a twisty series of double-crosses, but Tokyo Raiders is really about hip clothes and martial arts razzle-dazzle, all framed by the worst dubbed dialogue you've ever heard--sort of a Hong Kong version of The Mod Squad. Leung has demonstrated his acting chops in movies like Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, but he can't make this silliness sound sensible. Still, the actors are sexy, the fight scenes are splashy (if a little confusing), and the movie never wastes too much time getting from one action sequence to the next. A chase that starts out on a motorized skateboard and ends up on a trailer truck hauling new cars is particularly entertaining. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Pleasant Surprise
This is really cool, comfortable, chewy pop movie. It has a great cast (I only know Tony Leung, Ekin Cheng, Kelly Chen and Cecilia Chung, but I understand the Japanese actors in this movie are pretty big in their own country.) It's an example of HK cinema at it's flashiest. I don't get why people think the story is so difficult. I mean, the movie has three (at least) double-crosses. I imagine any director would have a hard time with that, so Jingle Ma did what I think suited his style and just made them "secondary." You watch this movie for the great chemistry between the three leads, the great action and style, and Kelly:) The DVD includes a Making-Of thing that is actually very interesting. What can I say, I've watched this movie fifty times. A quick note, it only has Cantonese and English dubbing, so all you fellow Mandarin Chinese people out there try and find a different version. My ears have only kind of gotten used to the Cantonese after fifty viewings. Lastly, the first scene in this movie is alone worth the price of admission, with Tony beating up some Japanese baddies in style with this really weird but catchy J-Pop soundtrack in the back.

East Meets Far East
Tokyo Raiders is a text book example of what Hong Kong cinema produces, and depending on your taste, it can be an eye candy or annoyance. Hit or miss, it never stops trying to entertain you.

The story is basically about three Chinese in Japan, raising hell and spoiling the bad guys. In between, there are fights, explosion, and of course, car chases. However, since pop stars Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen needs to protect their squeaky clean image, there is no naked woman where one normally finds in an American production. But Tony Leung's large quantity of beautiful assistants do somewhat make up for it.

This film is all about gadgets, plot twist, and style. With much emphasis on the later. It's rapid-fire MTVism editing even outdone MTV itself. And probably needed to hide the fact that neither Leung nor Cheng knows any kung fu in real life. But I like it. The editing keeps the image flowing and makes a typical fight scene interesting.

If you like big-budget popcorn movie that test your suspension of belief, in other words like me, you'll at least find it amusing.

A clever story, with great action
The beginning to this movie is quite bizzare. You are introduced to the three main characters of the movie, and you are misled or make the wrong assumptions, about the relationship between these three characters. It is actually quite cunning. I'll let you find out for yourself.

The story is basicially a Chinese girl gets jilted by a Japanese boy. Girl travels to Japan and tries to find boy, with a bit of *unwanted* help along the way. It very quickly shows that there is more to the jilting than meets the eye, and that is not the only convolution in the story.

The story is comical, slightly dramatic and is full of novel action. The shooting of the action itself is not only spectacular, but I find quite artistic. Something I find strange is the music, which has a Latin flavour. I liked it, it was cute, but considering the story has absolutly nothing to do with that part of the world, it seemed a bit out of place.

Ther wasn't much I didn't like about the movie, except perhaps the introduction of several character which really were not needed for the story at all (but add to the eye candy, so I am not complaining too much).

The DVD has pretty much the standard DVD features, language options, subtitle, scene selection, but was a bit scant on the extra features.

The English voice acting on the DVD was done well. Although the story (obviously) remains the same, the translation and the context in the English audio version for most of the part is different to the English subtitles and the Cantonese audio option.

This movie will appeal to most people, it's cheeky, action packed and keeps you thinking.