Righting Wrongs

Although threaded with slop skits and broad, slapstick intrusions that are painfully at odds with the stakes in play, when the credits roll on Righting Wrongs it's clear that Corey Yuen's film was premised on real bitterness. Like the director's earlier girls-with-guns film Yes, Madam!, Wrongs compartmentalises its most exciting elements - in this case Cynthia Rothrock's Senior Inspector Cindy and Yuen Biao's murderous criminal prosecutor Ha Ling-Ching - only allowing them scenes that detail their crimefighting methodology or their ability to physically (spectacularly) fend off assassins. It's clear then that Wrongs either doesn't want or doesn't expect us to relate to these characters - the former notion borne out by an alternative ending screened for Chinese mainland audiences that actively attempted to undermine the despondent mood generated by the Hong Kong edit's conclusion. 

Instead, significant passages of Righting Wrongs revolve around director Yuen's on-screen performance as Bad Egg, a slacker detective who refuses to wear socks and snoozes on stake-outs after gorging himself on fast food. Rothrock and Yuen Biao's characters exist in a separate, superheroic realm, only called upon to enliven the film when the central investigation has gotten slack. Bad Egg does end up serving a dramatic purpose though: he lulls the audience into a false sense of security. The gentle comedy of his subplot fosters an expectation that he will survive as a human albatross around Cindy's neck, generating an extra layer of difficulty for the Inspector when she is navigating the film's concluding chapter. This notion does not pan out. Neither does an assumption that Rothrock and Yuen Biao's characters will work together to take down the corrupt policeman orchestrating the film's mayhem. Their arrivals to the finale are staggered, their strength halved. Cathartic headshots give way to a crisp one-on-one fight - allegedly devised by action supremo Sammo Hung - then a sequence of stunt work so unexpectedly hair-raising that Jackie Chan could be proud of it.