This movie is also known as:
Hunting Head
Lip tau (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)
Long Goodbye (USA) (video title)
The Head Hunter (Hong Kong: English title)

I saw it in the US called “Long Goodbye”.

NOTE:
There are 2 additional English language titles:

Killers Two (Hong Kong: English title)
The Executioner (Hong Kong: English title) (informal title)

Like the other reviewers, I rented it for Chow Yun Fat. Granted he’s not the main star (in fact he doesn’t show up for the first 16 minutes) but he’s one of the main cast.

The edition I saw was a very poor print quality, with terrible subtitles. The plot wasn’t that great, nothing we haven’t seen a million times. And since it’s early HK action films there’s not as much fighting and shooting as we’ve grown accustomed to.

However, if you’re a dedicated fan of the genre or Chow Yun Fat – it’s worth watching. Danny Lee has a nice early role too. It’s fun to watch for the late 70’s era Hong Kong. The hair! The clothes! The tiny brightly color cars! Plus the final scenes where it all comes to an end are amusing and fit the tragic noble cop movie genre quite well.

And I’ve never laughed so hard as when I realized I was watching Chow Yun Fat PEE on someone while laughing maniacally.

Like most people, I saw Jackie Chan & Sammo Hung and picked this up for a cheesy 80’s action flick. I wish I had realized this was going to be a drama. I was not prepared for the heavy subject matter.

Nontheless I was very impressed with the plot of the brother sacrificing all his dreams and his life to care for his mentally disabled brother. Jackie and Sammo did a great job showing what life is like for both of them. Seeing how much Jackie suffered taking care of his brother, watching over him, seeing him insulted and not getting to live his own life was heartbreakingly sad.

WARNING- MINOR SPOILER AHEAD.

I’m not one to need happy Hollywood endings, nor do I mind the occasional HK bloodbath ending where everyone dies… but for some reason the ending to this film really really depressed me and sort of ruined it for me. It was realistic and that’s fine, since the rest of the film was going for realism. I just wanted some silver lining that things might improve in their lives. Or at least… not actually get WORSE!

While I found the movie sad, I just found the ending to be too depressing.

So, it’s worth seeing, just be prepared.

I like the Chinese fantasy genre & “wu xia” martial arts films.. And I’ve really enjoyed some pretty cheesey plot lines and ‘special’ effects in Hong Kong movies from the 80’s. Mr. Vampire and Chinese Ghost Story are some of my favorites.

I allow foreign films a bit more of a break than films from my own culture. I generally assume I’m missing some of the symbolism and that the subtitles aren’t giving me the best dialogue.

I can respect and enjoy the seriousness of some of the plot points about honor/betrayal, etc. while still being able to laugh at some of the over the top elements.

It was beautiful, goregous scenery, gorgeous shots, beautiful costuming. The visual negatives was the horrible CGI which was way overused.

The plot was a little weak, nothing we haven’t seen done better in other movies.

On the whole I was disappointed, but mostly enjoyed it. However, I would only recommend it to people who like the genre and if you liked House of Flying Daggers- another beautiful movie that was very thin on plot.

P.S.
From people’s comments apparently there were different versions for different US markets. I saw the one called “The Promise” that was about 1.5 hours.

...is that this movie just wasn’t very good.

I thought I would love this film. I love Cary Grant. I love films from the 30’s and 40’s. I was expecting screwball comedy. I was expecting crisp, sharp, snappy, riveting dialogue. I wanted strong interesting women (Hepburn, Stanwyck, Davis, Loy, etc.). I didn’t even care if the setting/plot were weak -those were just settings to see real stars shine and let the dialogue drag you from scene to scene laughing at the witty interchanges.

I was disappointed.

Irene Dunne was a terrible lead. A lot of her scenes were her sitting there looking perplexed with her mouth open (and w/ those atrocious curls stuck to her head!) The dialogue was boring and uninteresting. The plot was trite and predictable. Directing was uninspired. The final scene where they couldn’t sleep almost put us to sleep!

About the only positive I can say is Irene Dunne’s fashionable outfits were very interesting.

P.S. they never did explain where Grant’s character was when he claimed to be in FL – did they?

I first read this book (writetn in 1977) back in jr. high school, probably around 1983. I loved it. I not only read every book in the series, I read every book Piers Anthony ever wrote. I thought he was the most original writer ever.

Recently I reread this book and I was very sad to realize it was something that I would not enjoy if I read it today. The basic set up of the world and magic was still as good as I remembered it – however, there were some serious gender issues.

The single greatest flaw was the book’s dismissal of rape (she was too stupid to know better, she enticed him…) and actively promoting rape myths. The book is rife with stereotypes about women and women pretty much only exist for the sake of being sexual objects. Yes, Crombie who utters many of the phrases Bink considers is labelled as a misogynist. Sure, there attempts to be a good moral lesson. (Bink likes intelligence in his women and prefers an ‘average’ woman to his former beautiful girlfriend). However even the way that is shown is rather insulting. He realizes beautiful women are either stupid and/or will betray him and decides to ‘settle’ for average looks.

I was highly disappointed to realize just how retrograde it really was.

I saw the movie as an attempt to show what life might be like for (an unmedicated) schizophrenic. Gondry’s attempt to show Stehpan’s inability to differentiate between reality and his dreams/thoughts is interesting. However, watching Stephan’s struggles to fit in and form a relationship with his fixation are rather sad. The film is fractured, but then so is the way Stephan thinks/perceives – so it works. Nothing quite makes sense because that’s how his world is. The imagery, and the
display of Stephan’s creativity are amazing. I think the film is trying not to judge him and just wants to shows his life. In the end though, I was really sad that he never sought help—he might’ve been able to have more of his dreams become real that way…

*contains SPOILERS*
As soon as I picked it up I realized it was just a Dan Brown ripoff cashing in on the success of Angels & Demons and DaVinci code.
Since I enjoy the thriller genre I decided to read it anyway and see how this writer handled it.

A couple hundred pages in I realized that it was the “pro-Christian response” by the kind of people that thought Dan Brown was anti-Catholic. I groaned, but kept reading…
And then it was revealed the main bad guy was actually the DEVIL and it lost any claim to impartiality or subtleness.

The atheists in the book are potrayed as:
1.) a former believer who gains his faith again
2.) a former Episcopalian… and a completely evil sociopathic sadistic killer who serves the devil
3.) a pompous academic who we’re supposed to be amused gets set up for an arrest – based purely on his researching the darker side of Catholicism.
4.) and I think there was an immoral violence-loving mercenary who works for the devil.
(Note: the PRIEST who was also an ASSASSIN for the church – was of course, portrayed as a good guy)

I finished it just to see how bad and crazy it could get.
And boy did it deliver….. The usual stereotypical scenes of holy objects/places harming the baddies or saving the good (aka Religous) ones.
And an actual occurance to prove the after-life in Heaven exists.
(Though I must give him credit – the author did actually refrain from using the “miracle” cure to solve one of the major problems in the book.)

I was improperly prepared for this film. I was told it was a comedy. I didnt’ find it funny. I then decided it must be a inspirational/message film about team work, ethical playing, violence, trying to make money by any means necessary, a gender and class commentary. Maybe just a commentary on violence, sportsmanship and game playing. Wrong again.

If I had just been told it was JUST a film showing what life was like in a minor hockey league in the 70’s I might’ve appreciated it more instead of looking for humor or meaning. There is no payoff. No growth in the characters (in fact they degenerate into nothing but goons).

It was just a sad movie about some pathetic losers who were losing their dreams, their livelihood and their spouses. Very few of the hockey players were likable people so it was hard to keep watching when you don’t care what happens to them. I think Paul Newman’s character was supposed to be sympathetic but I thought he was just selfish and rather despicable.

There were so many sideplots that could have been developed and would have interested me more. A town losing it’s entire point of existence? Barely mentioned. The alienation and clinical depression of the wives? Shown, but not really addressed – just a given. A few hints at a critique of the violence taking over the sport – but in the end there was just an embrace of the new “style”.

It’s also hard to watch from a modern sensibility. Having spent decades trying to overcome the sexism and homophobia of previous times-I really have no desire to return to those days (though it might be instructional for younger audiences who have no idea what it used to be like). The epithet FG and the word lesbian used as an insult were pretty much the entire dialogue. While I respect that it is probably an accurate reflection of the times and the dialogue – I don’t find it funny.

SPOILER*

The end was just sad. Watching them give up on sportsmanship; lose their jobs (was Newman lying about his new gig like he’d lied about most of the rest?);and delude themselves into thinking they’d stay with their wives. Nothing/nobody had changed (or at least not for the better).