FILM DIARY: Point of No Return (aka, Touch and Go) (Ringo Lam, 1991)

This is a darker than usual film for Sammo Hung, who plays a wide-eyed innocent, street cook Fat Goose, who gets caught up in street level violence when he witnesses a policeman being murdered by a group of thugs. However, the street hoods are in the employ of a much more wealthy group of criminals who are involved in sex trafficking, abducting young women from mainland China and forcing them into prostitution in brothels – the most regular patrons of which seem to be city officials and high ranking members of the police force. Sammo teams up, largely through accident, with Wan Yeung-Ming, who plays Pitt, the partner of the murdered detective. Sammo also attempts to court Wan’s sister, played by Teresa Mo. The head of the street hoods is played with sinister precision by Tommy Wong.

There’s some humour (Fat Goose persuades his mother that Teresa Mo is his girlfriend, and ‘Goose Mom’ – as she’s called in the subs – makes Mo go through a series of exercises designed to assess whether she would be capable of multiple childbirth), though it’s buried in some bone-crunching violence and a near-persistent sense of threat. Not top-tier Ringo Lam (ie, not on a par with CITY ON FIRE, etc) but certainly a good representation of his middle-tier work.

Leave a Comment