- "Those who follow their destiny meet with sorrows, while those who resist their destiny meet with death."
Fatal Move is a 2008 Hong Kong movie starring Sammo Hung, Simon Yam, Danny Lee and Wu Jing, their second collaboration after Sha Po Lang. Ironically, this time Yam and Hung are on the same side.
Triad brothers Lin Ho-Lung (Sammo Hung) and Lin Ho-Tung (Simon Yam) finds themselves in the middle of a triad war for control, while being investigated by Senior Inspector Liu Chi-chung (Danny Lee). Facing a series of double-crossings and internal conspiracy, the triad brothers must fight to regain control of their crime empire.
Jacky Wu Jing, then famous for his role as Jack, the ruthless hitman and murderer from Sha Po Lang and his epic fight with Donnie Yen, once again plays another henchman and top assassin employed under Sammo Hung, named Lok Tin-hung. His performance as Luk, an even deadlier murderer than Jack, makes him a popular choice for Hong Kong villains in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
This film exhibits the following tropes:
- Acrofatic: Lin Ho-Lung, being played by Sammo Hung that's expected.
- An Arm and a Leg: Plenty of characters lose their limbs in the numerous gang wars, but mostly to Luk and his insanely cool jian. In fact, Luk’s Establishing Character Moment had him marching into a gang war where various gangsters are attacking each other with machetes, and with several quick slashes of his jian, removes maybe a dozen limbs in five seconds and leaving several one-limbed bodies bleeding everywhere he goes.
- Badass Longcoat: Luk, wearing his trenchcoat in several scenes in the movie. But when he fights Lin Ho-Lung in the ending, The Coats Are Off.
- Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The movie ends with Lin Ho-Tung, Sole Survivor of all the triad wars, making his escape. But then suddenly, an unseen person points a gun at him. Cue end credits.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Luk triads does this a lot to force their victims to reveal important information. An especially painful one happens to poor Tracy, who was never seen again after having her fingernails and teeth pulled off in shockingly graphic detail.
- Cool Old Guy: Lin Ho-Lung, played by the 55-year-old Sammo Hung.
- Cool Sword: Luk’s preferred weapon, a Chinese jian which he used to slice and dice mooks that gets in his way. Heck, his very own character poster naturally features this weapon by his side
◊. - Heroes Prefer Swords: Inverted with Luk, the deadliest villain, who is the only swordsman in the movie.
- Iaijutsu Practitioner: Luk. In one scene he tries intimidating a rival mob boss who has two bodyguards beside him. The mob boss, determined to teach Luk a lesson, signals for his bodyguards to draw guns, but in one quick swoop, Luk sliced up the throats of both bodyguards, remove the mob boss’ hand who just finished drawing his gun, and sheathes his sword before the mob boss can look at his bloody stump.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Luk's fate after his duel with Lin Ho-Lung, which ends with the iron pipe Lung was using as weapon going into Luk's jugular.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Soso is executed by rival assassins disguised as workers painting a wall in the police station.
- Karmic Death: Subverted with Luk's demise. Sure, he slashed several throats throughout the movie, and his fate is by getting an iron pipe shoved through his throat, but it's his ally, Lin Ho-Lung doing the stabbing, and that's from a sparring session to determine who is the best fighter.
- Leave No Survivors: After receiving the 200 million ransom money, Uncle Yu and the hired kidnappers are executed by Soso and Fat.
- Machete Mayhem: Whenever there's a gang war onscreen, expect combatants to be using machetes to slice each other up.
- Morton's Fork: The movie ends with the two final survivors, Luk Tin-hung and Lin Ho-Lung, deciding to fight each other to the death. Whomever survives the fight will commit Suicide by Cop.
- Older Is Better: In the final shootout, Lin Ho-Lung refuse to use machine-guns, instead going for his old, trusty Winchester rifle.
- R-Rated Opening: The film opens with Ho-Tung shooting a helpless man, all tied up in a chair, between the eyes at point-blank range, with a very bloody accompanying squib. And it gets more brutal from there.
- Slashed Throat: Many, many mobsters suffers this fate courtesy of Luk and his jian. And also Soso's demise.
- Suicide by Cop: Lin Ho-Lung, facing an entire police force alone, decides to intimidate the police to gun him down by marching into the line of fire and shooting dual machine guns into the air.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Lin Ho-tung shooting a rival triad leader, then empties the entire content of his machine gun all over his victim's face, chest, torso, and limbs. After that the movie nicely gives the audience a nice glimpse of his bullet-riddled body, full of holes, and half his face missing.
- Uncertain Doom: Whether Lin Ho-Tung survives the movie or not is beyond anyone's guess.
