Andy Lau and Alan Tang ready to kick some serious ass.
Return Engagement (aka Hong Kong Corruptor) is a 1990 Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed film starring Alan Tang, Simon Yam and Andy Lau.
Lung Ho-tin (Alan Tang from Flaming Brothers) is a Triad leader operating in Canada, but when a mob war between the Chinese gangsters and the Canadian Mafia leaves his wife dead, Lung, in a last-ditch attempt at revenge, kills the Canadian mob kingpin, effectively earning himself more than two decades in prison. Upon being discharged, Lung discovers that his daughter was sent to an orphanage in Hong Kong, and he seeks to reunite with her. Helping Lung is Tsim Siu-fong, his new girlfriend in Hong Kong who accepts him for who he is, and tries her best to help him reunite with his last surviving family member.
Andy Lau, despite his popularity back then, had a smaller role as Wah, a small-time triad who worships Lung.
This film contains examples of:
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Lung and Wah in the final shootout.
- The Cameo: Veteran Shaw Brothers action star and badass, Chang Yi shows up as a toilet repairman.
- Cool Shades: Wah and at least one of his comrades in the final scene.
- Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Wah is a young mobster who looks up to Lung, and personally volunteers to become Lung’s sidekick when Lung gets released from prison early in the film. He’s also surprisingly good at kicking ass despite claiming to be a rookie.
- Dead All Along: Lung’s daughter actually died a year before he was released from prison.
- Downer Ending: Lung failed to reunite with his long-lost daughter because she died prior to his arrival in Hong Kong, and his new girlfriend Tsim dies as well. What’s worse, he’s now sentenced to life in prison because of the many murders he has committed, ironic since him getting released from prison early in the movie is such a big deal to him.
- Family Man: Lung, who still cares deeply for his daughter.
- Hate Sink: Simon Yam’s Lee Pang is created to be as ruthless and devoid of positive qualities as possible. Being Uncle Hung’s number 2, he seeks to usurp control of the triads by any means necessary, antagonizing Lung as soon as Lung rejoins the syndicate, and manipulating the other triad superiors to cause distrust in their ranks. And while there are lines that Uncle Hung demands that the mob would not cross, Pang ignores whatever code of honour, personally massacring an innocent family and then killing Uncle Hung to prove his superiority. With Lung as his last opponent, Pang is willing to abduct Lung’s girlfriend Tsim, rape her and use her agonized screams to taunt Lung, and ultimately kill her when Lung manage to gun him down in the final shootout.
- Hitman with a Heart: Lung Ho-tin.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Wah, the protégé and sidekick to Lung, who help Lung break out of a tight spot in the restaurant confrontation, trace down important information for his boss, assemble a weapon cache for Lung and provide a Heroic Second Wind in the final shootout.
- I Have a Family: After losing his wife, the one last reason for Lung to continue living is the hopes for his daughter to be still alive for him to reunite with her. Too bad he missed her by a year.
- I Have Your Wife: Tsim, new girlfriend and the last person he really cares about after finding out his daughter had actually died gets captured alive by Lee Pang, triggering his last-minute Roaring Rampage of Rescue. He nearly succeeds, but this being a Heroic Bloodshed film, you wouldn’t expect for a romance story to have a happy ending, would you?
- Jail Bake: A variation, but during the confrontation scene in a restaurant between Lung and the mafia, where several mafia goons had their guns trained on the unarmed Lung, Wah (disguised as a waiter) pretends to be delivering the Peking Duck Lung had ordered… containing a pistol in it. Allowing Lung to quickly grab the pistol in the duck and shoot his opponents.
- Just Got Out of Jail: Lung Ho-tin early in the film, having been discharged from a Canadian prison and making his way back to Hong Kong to reunite with his long-lost daughter.
- Klingon Promotion: How Pang manage to take over the mob. When Uncle Hung reprimands Pang for exposing their drug trade in public, Pang retaliates by shooting Uncle Hung in front of his men to assert his dominance over the triads.
- Knee-capping: Pang managed to shoot Lung in the kneecaps while using Tsim as a hostage.
- Leave No Witnesses: Lee Pang, after an illicit weapons deal goes wrong, orders his mooks to kill every member of the rival mob present. Realizing one of the mobsters have a family living nearby, consisting of his mother and two children, Pang personally guns down both kids and the old woman.
- The Lost Lenore: Lung, who lose his wife early in the film and spends much of the film pinning for her absence.
- The Mafia: Lung and the triads based in Canada had to deal with a territorial dispute with a bunch of these goons in the beginning of the film.
- Men of Sherwood: Wah and his team of punks. There are five of them, Wah included, yet they can kick massive amounts of ass and provides The Cavalry for Lung in the final shootout.
- Morality Pet: May, who Lung believes to be his daughter and vow to keep her safe. Even after she revealed that she isn’t his daughter at all, he still went back to save her life one last time.
- Pretty Little Headshots: The death of Lung’s wife in the first scene, where a Mafia goon drives past their vehicle firing away with a machine gun. Lung ducks just in time, but his wife isn’t that lucky and she’s shown to be bleeding from her forehead, though in a non-graphic way.
- Her death is a blatant Shout-Out to Tracy Bond’s death in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
- Pummeling the Corpse: A variation. After killing Uncle Hung and taking over the mob, Pang gleefully pushes Hung’s (who Dies Wide Open) head aside while gleefully smiling at his dead body.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Pang, while telling Lung he had kidnapped Tsim to draw Lung out for a final confrontation, at the same time also had Tsim gagged and Chained to a Bed and sexually violate her repeatedly forcing her screams to taunt Lung.
- Red Light District: Lung eventually managed to track down May, his long-lost daughter, only to find her working as a bar girl in a nightclub in one of Hong Kong’s seediest brothel areas and getting harassed by a bunch of punks, much to his chagrin.
- Replacement Goldfish: Lung’s wife may have died early on in the film, but he gets a new girlfriend, Miss Tsim Siu-fong, who is loyal to him despite knowing his criminal background, and cares for him as a wife would.
- Retired Badass: Lung Ho-tin, who had not seen action for two decades, but can still kick ass if needed.
- The Reveal: May is NOT Lung’s long-lost daughter at all, but just a bar girl that happens to know his daughter. In truth, his daughter had already passed away… a year before he returned to Hong Kong.
- Revenge Before Reason: Lung, eager to kill the Canadian mob leader responsible for his wife's death, decides to just execute the mob leader in public. Which results in his imprisonment and subsequently forced to leave his infant daughter's side for decades.
- Rule of Symbolism: The final shootout happens when Lung, Wah and their allies attacks Pang and his mobsters, who just left from attending a Meaningful Funeral meant for Uncle Hung. What a coincidence that the film's bloodiest high-action bodycount shootout finale takes place mere minutes after a scene in a graveyard!
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Lung Ho-tin's daughter actually died a year before his return from Canada to Hong Kong.
- Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: Played straight in the final shootout. Lung, Wah and the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits assisting Wah are dressed in motorcycle jackets, overcoats, regular sweaters, while Lee Pang and his mobsters are dressed in smart, black suits.
- Taking You with Me: In the final shootout, Lung finally managed to gun down Pang, but in his dying throes, Pang pulls off the detonator of an explosive device on Tsim, blowing her into Ludicrous Gibs in a last-ditch attempt to spite Lung.
- Tempting Fate: The Mafia leader, a Politically Incorrect Villain, who taunts at Lung saying "Try and shoot me now, you fucking chink!"… Lung obliged, by ramming his vehicle into the Mafia leader and shoots him in the face as he rolls over the vehicle’s hood.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Lung, after witnessing Tsim’s death in the hands of Pang, empties an entire clip of machine-gun rounds into Pang.
- Yank the Dog's Chain:
- In a massive Kick the Dog moment, when the family of an executed rival mobster (consisting of said mobster’s mother and two children) crosses path with Pang and his men, one of Pang’s men point his pistol at the old woman and children. Pang tells him to stop, taking the pistol away… then points the gun at the children, revealing he’s going to execute the innocent witnesses himself!
- For Lung, who had lost his wife and spent decades in a Canadian prison while praying his daughter whom was sent back in Hong Kong as a baby is safe… it turns out she had died, a year before he made it back to Hong Kong with intention to reunite with her.
- It’s a twofer for poor Lung, because his new girlfriend and Replacement Goldfish for his wife, Tsim Siu-Fong, ends up getting blown to pieces by Pang in the final scene.
