Cinematic agnostics to Asian Martial Arts pics, with their hyped-up chases, flying acrobatic fights & OTT sound design, may find a path to genre appreciation thru the form’s comic side. (When played straight, especially with today’s CGI nullifying all physical limitations, emotional investment can be Super-Hero-Pic-Pointless.) Hence, in the tradition of agile funny fat men going back to Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, here’s Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, a Hong Kong force-of-nature action star little known Stateside. PEDICAB, reportedly one of his best, is crude, rude & a bit lewd, but often very funny in its broader-than-broad manner. Or is until a third act brings in unexpectedly serious consequences. Hung, not the tidiest of storytellers, drops plotlines right & left, like the war between coolies & pedicabs that opens the film with some delightful mayhem. Instead, a loose cannon of a narrative line involving Hung & his pal Pretty Boy as they court a couple of put-upon working gals with bad bosses. (Leading to a tragic turn of events the film’s tone has trouble supporting.) But with so many wildly inventive, funny, dazzling stunt-filled capers, you’re happy just going along for the ride. Subtle it ain’t, but strikingly drawn characters and Hung’s brio as unlikely action hero/director carry us thru all sorts of comic business and turf-wars. Sloppy, but winning.
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