Fatal Termination

Lou (rhymes with wow!)3.5

A ruthless crime drama that is infamous for the reckless stunt involving a young child being dangled out of a speeding car, Fatal Termination is actually a lot more than a showcase for the amoral practices of the Hong Kong film industry. The movie tells a compelling story of how criminals corrupt even those with the best intentions with the prospect of quick cash, destroying the lives of innocent people in the process.The short plot description on letterboxd only tells you what happens in the final act. The first hour mostly consists of Simon Yam doing procedural/ detective work, going after the bad guys. It's good though. Very tense at times, with great dramatic build-up. The final act is just balls to the wall action spectacle. Brave the atrocious English subtitles and you will be rewarded with a pretty spectacular movie.

Lexzilla3.0

You ever watch a stunt so insane, that even though it’s the thing the film is kind of famous for, you still can’t believe you’re seeing it? Yeah. Even by Hong Kong standards, dangling a small child outside a speeding car window is crazy. And both worrying and hilarious. And at the same time this is happening, Moon Lee is punching through the windscreen to try and get at the driver, another bad guy comes out the broken windscreen to punch Lee and meanwhile the drivers tie is in Lee’s grip and he’s slowly being strangled as he swerves all over the place at high speed. And yes, just in case you weren’t sure, the young girl (and we are talking about five years old here) is still dangling! It’s breathtaking but also concerning how anyone thought that was the best method of saving the hanging little Yan-Yan. This delirium all hits at the one-hour mark. Before that it’s a blue-grey colour-palleted generic, if disjointed, police thriller with Detective Li (Simon Yam) busting heads to try and find some weapons being smuggled by terrorists via corrupt customs officials. After that, for the last thirty minutes, it turns into the actioner you think its going to be from the poster, finally letting Lee do something, and culminating in a massive shootout set piece complete with grenades, rocket launchers and helicopters. Explosion mayhem fun. Except for the bits just before that when it goes full-on ruthless and grim actioner with torture, kid murder and death by explosives.Honestly, it’s two stars for the first part, four for that probably-polarising final run. And still a giant what! for that stunt.

Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti"4.5

"Fatal Termination" is a 1990 action film directed by Andrew Kam. At face value it holds cannon in the "Girls with Guns" genre but as that might be an attractor to get an audience with a hook, the film is a bit expansively different than what can be assumed to a degree. At the same time, the cover the film is wholeheartedly what you will get, with a ridiculous amount of payoff if maintains a bit of patience with things. I find a little crazy in application to see the lower side of scores by some. As stated, before here, there is a little bit of narrative storytelling in the beginning that has to be waded through, and while the action doesn't get expansively crazy right up front like people are chomping at the bit to get at, the pacing is fine enough with some real genuine excitable energy in the first portion of things. The overall narrative is a little cheesy with some generic terrorist organization and weapons smuggling, but honestly, it's a good quality layer of camp distributed to lay forward the tonal build you are going to get through the rest of the film.As the first half is pretty serviceable, actually giving some action-based scenes intermixed to keep flow going along with some introduction of overall characters, it is full on anarchy for the last chunk of the film, easily making up whatever constraints some people may have about the first portion. Wrecks, explosions, helicopters, shootouts, etc. are all on full display as the film goes from 0-100 MPH in pure anarchic proportions. If you like practical effects shootouts with the abundant use of exploding squibs, this thing is for you. Additionally, I would be amiss if I didn't bring the crazy stunt involving a child being dangled out of a car during a chase sequence, probably the most notorious thing featured in this film. As much as I would have high reservations about letting my own child perform that stunt, it is pulled off in the film leaving a jaw dropping result. As of this point, I haven't really researched any of the systematic background on how it was performed, but in sheer spectacle of it all, it is one of the craziest stunts I've seen featured in a film. So, in conclusional build of it all, the last half of the film would easily be something I would merit an extremely high star rating based upon how polarizing it is. You have to wade the waters a bit at the beginning to get things started, but even then, none of the early portions are as painful as some are making it seem, just over heightened by some in a natural response that is expelled by the crazed second portion. Aside for the balance of things, which really isn't the biggest of issues, this movie wholeheartedly hits with a vengeance, easily being a film for people to speak on in memorable form. Additionally, have to give a great shout out to Error 4444 for working on this film and putting it out, it does not disappoint whatsoever.