Eastern Condors (Hong Kong, 1987)
Directed by: Sammo Hung
Starring: Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Lam Ching-ying, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, Joyce Mina Godenzi, Yuen Wah, Corey Yuen, Yuen Wo-ping, Billy Chow, Yasuaki Kurata

Forget APOCALYPSE NOW. To hell with PLATOON. The world’s best Vietnam movie is Sammo Hung’s EASTERN CONDORS. This is a ‘Nam film where the mind-numbing uncertainty of war is replaced with the jaw-dropping awesomeness of a flying roundhouse kick to the face. There are all the expected Vietnam War movie elements: child soldiers, Oscar-winning actors (Dr. Haing S. Ngor), games of Russian Roulette, tiger cages, torture sessions and missions gone totally FUBAR. But Sammo ups the stakes with a trio of female freedom fighters (one of whom is his wife, Joyce Mina Godenzi), ten of Hong Kong’s best action stars and some of the gnarliest fight scenes ever put on film.

1976: the war is over. America is busy licking its wounds. But the Pentagon brass are having sleepless nights over a massive stockpile of weaponry they left behind. The solution: two teams will be sent back to the green hell to blow up the abandoned arsenal. One, headed by mustachioed action stud, Melvin Wong, is made up of crack commandos who will blow up the missiles. The other, headed by Bruce Lee’s stunt double, Lam Ching-ying, consists of Chinese-American criminals doing time in the brig. They’re the distraction, little more than canon fodder, but before the first ripcord is yanked, the entire mission is screwed and the minute boots hit the ground, Lam Ching-ying’s team are being hunted like dogs by an elite Vietcong kill squad made up of kickboxer Billy Chow, karate master Yasuaki Kurata, ace fighter Dick Wei, and Yuen Wah (KUNG FU HUSTLE) playing one of the most memorable screen villains of all time: a mincing, giggling, fanflicking VC general who shrieks with petulant rage as he rips out shoulder blades.

Leavened with black (very black) humor, EASTERN CONDORS makes the DIRTY DOZEN look like a Girl Scout troop. Betrayals flow fast and bloody, heroes die like dogs and good men and women go down with knives in their backs. This is Sammo Hung’s greatest directorial achievement and it’s one of his own personal favorite movies. A chance to see it on one of the few 35mm prints left, with Sammo Hung and Joyce Mina Godenzi is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, because while we can put a man on the moon, climb the highest mountains, explore the deepest oceans and cure the worst diseases, we will never again make an action movie as awesome as EASTERN CONDORS.