THE FATAL RAID Review – A Clash Between Eastern & Western Action Philosophies
The days of Hong Kong being a vibrant, trendsetting part of the larger international film world are over. Its once breakneck pace of film production was replaced with a slow trickle of a few films a year as budgets dwindled, scrutiny from the mainland Chinese government increased, and their stars either retired or resigned themselves to working on sanitized, propaganda-heavy films for mainland audiences. Even that small trickle has now dried up as the mainland government has moved to treating films from the small island no differently than any of the other films they heavily regulate. All that’s left for diehard Hong Kong action film aficionados still looking for new thrills is to sift through what remains from those final years of films that trickled out in hopes of finding one last piece of gold. Distributor Well Go USA has tried to aid in that search by releasing films to the states from these final few years that attempt to recapture that spirit of when Hong Kong action was at the pinnacle of thrilling cinema. Their latest release is one that looks to the “girls with guns” subgenre, that starred the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Yukari Oshima, and Moon Lee, for inspiration- 2019’s THE FATAL RAID.
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