Tiger on Beat (Lo Foo Chut Gang)

The UW’s cine-fan theater pays tribute to one of its own, film scholar David Bordwell, who passed away in March, with a series called “Thank You, David Bordwell.” All the Wednesday night screenings this summer will be 35mm prints of films from Bordwell’s own collection, now housed at the Wisconsin Center for Film & Theater Research. On July 3, Jan de Bont’s bus/bomb thriller Speed “exemplifies the fairly well-crafted action picture,” as Bordwell wrote. July 10 features the French film Vagabond from 1985; July 17 highlights Laura, the Otto Preminger murder mystery of 1944; and the series closes July 24 with Tiger on Beat, a Hong Kong buddy-cop film that Bordwell praised as “exciting, even exhilarating.” All films are at 7 p.m. at 4070 Vilas Hall.

media release: Hong Kong | 1988 | 35mm | 93 min. | Cantonese with English subtitles

Director: Lau Kar Leung

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Conan Lee, Nina Li Chi

In this HK buddy cop drama in the tradition of Lethal Weapon, Chow Yun-Fat stars as a clownish, womanizing Sergeant more interested in flashy shirts than fighting crime, until he's paired with a serious rookie (Conan Lee) to bust a cocaine ring. As they attempt to uncover the criminal masterminds, the pair are led to a final showdown involving shotguns-on-strings and flying chainsaws, one of the most jawdropping sequences in the celebrated history of Hong Kong action movies. “Such flagrantly loopy combat is quite exciting, even exhilarating….Artificially shaped grace can be tremendously arousing. Don’t forget how people get carried away watching dancing, acrobatics, or basketball” (David Bordwell).

35mm print courtesy Academy Film Archive.