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Genres: Comedy, Crime; With: Arsenio Hall and Sammo Hung

Martial Law's first 10 minutes make it clear that its prospects hang on its leading man, chunky chopsocky Honk Kong import, Sammo Hung. Five of those minutes introduce Hung's Sammo Law in a dazzling, near-slapstick factory brawl with a gang of baddies. It's when Law encounters his American colleagues (Louis Mandylor and Tammy Lauren) and initial plot arc (ace detective Law comes to L.A. to nab an international gangster cabal and rescue an undercover Chinese cop, the excellent Kelly Hu) that things get painfully trite. And so it goes; moments of physical-comic virtuosity alternating with tepid, by-the-book cop-show fare...and oh, yeah, a cute but awfully contrived bit that finds Law a contestant on The Price Is Right. Huh?! Note to producers: More Hung, more Hu, less hooey. B-


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Posted Sep 25, 1998
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