Invincible Enforcer (1979) User Reviews

An Early HK prison melodrama

[gjychan · 5/10 · 7 March 2008]

A Shaw Brothers effort from the late 70's supposedly an expose on the Hong Kong prison system of the 1950's- that was what we're led to believe at the beginning with a documentary narrative approach and the story supposedly based on the memoirs of a female probationary officer. Thereafter when the story begins we focus on the character played by Tony Lau and his experience of injustice going through the HK prison system surrounded by corrupt wardens, prison 'Big brothers' and stoolies that make his life hell.

It's all done in a very melodramatic and sensationalist fashion and while I appreciate the earnest message the filmmaker is trying to make on the need to address the injustice of the corruption of the prison system and it's effect on individuals, the execution is very heavy-handed and cliché by today's standards. This distracts some impact of the film and also that for a film supposedly set in the 1950's everything looks very 1970's. However credit should go to the use the female probationary officer's perspective on the story and her consistent effort to bring justice to the prisoner's situation which brings sympathy and urgency to the plight of Tony Lau's character. Overall worth a look just to see social conscience films done Shaw style and to draw links to the more famous HK prison drama "Prison on Fire" starring Chow Yun Fat.

More a social comment than a film

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 19 November 2016]

1979 saw the famous Shaw Brothers studio of Hong Kong taking a brief break from their martial arts pictures to deliver this cutting expose of the Hong Kong legal system and in particular the endemic corruption found in prisons. The story is set in the 1950s and seems to have been loosely based on the truth. It's about a guy who is imprisoned due to petty crime and who subsequently finds himself at the mercy of a corrupt prison guard who proceeds to make his life a misery.

This is an odd film indeed and it works better as a piece of social commentary than a real film. Certainly this isn't a very dramatically satisfying piece, given that almost the entire running time is given over to torture and degradation, all of it aimed at the protagonist. INVINCIBLE ENFORCER is also a very dark and tough movie, with some surprisingly explicit gross-out moments which come across as fairly shocking. At times it feels like a women-in-prison film, albeit one with a gender reversal.

The cast are all very good and convincing in their roles and the sets convince, as you'd expect for Shaw. However, I did have a problem with the poor direction from Cheng Kang, whose editing is choppy in the extreme. Certain key moments from the narrative feel jumbled and confused due to his mishandling of the material; I still have no idea what happened in the broken mirror scene early on due to these flaws. There's also no action in this picture, at least until the last five minutes, a surprise given that it came from Shaw. For much lighter and more enjoyable Hong Kong prison action, I recommend checking out PRISON ON FIRE and ISLAND OF FIRE, films which show the corruption and the brutality of prison life while providing entertainment and viewer satisfaction at the same time.