Man Wanted 3 (Taiwan Version) DVD Region All

Simon Yam plays John Paul, Loan Shark of Mongkok, and one of the two Eagles of Mongkok (the other one is dead), zazzing about in his Ferrari and telling cops with loans to pay up or else. He's the ultra-male as patriarch, a legendary criminal whose hard knock life has made him world-weary and who wants to protect women and children from following in his footsteps. He drinks nightly lemon coffees lovingly poured by the dead other Eagle of Mongkok's gal, Mui, and he lovingly brings her over-the-counter tummy medicine that she unable to buy for herself.

Tung is a triad wannabe with the disconcerting ability to waggle his eyebrows independently of each other, who gets taken on by Brother Windy when he saves his hide from Alien (Simon Loui in impacted Terminator mode) by sucking down two bottles of warm VSOP cognac. Tung thinks Brother Windy's going to make him a star, but instead he winds up peddling knock-off Prada in a night market instead.

Tung, Ekin hairdo aflutter in the night winds, also goes to nightschool where he falls for teacher, lethargic Ms. Ho, and runs into trouble with Kit who's been taken on by Alien and who is Mui's son! Absolutely everyone in this movie will wind up discovering they are a blood relative by the end.

Things spend 87 minutes building to a hopefully-satirical John Woo climax, with plenty of stops for PSAs on the dangers of hemp, a little pathos, a little "the kid's alright", and lots of scenes of Simon Yam screeching in at the last minute in his Ferrari to sort everyone out. With a cinematic feel for deserted neon cityscapes, this flick makes the most of its b-list material with a winning bad guy performance (Simon Lui looks like a really mean, newly-hatched chicken), some nicely-choreographed action, and enough father-son subtext to fuel a dozen Shaolin style kung fu flicks. In a neat bit of self-referential feedback, Simon and Alien's boss is played by Brother Ko, Simon Yam's boss in The Mission, causing some scenes around the conference table to feel like out-takes from the aforementioned film.

Never rising to the level of a classic, but never becoming boring either, Man Wanted 3 is an able-bodied programmer that sets modest goals and achieves them with a whole lot of effort. As an added bonus, Simon Yam continues to mystically turn in flawless work in flawed movies and his scenes with Simon Lui are gobs of fun. "You should know me," he hisses to Alien at one point, "Don't turn on my nerve." Yeah. What he said.

by Grady Hendrix