After Kit Li (Jet Li) loses his wife and son in a bus bombing, he relocates to Hong Kong and takes a job as a bodyguard and stunt double for movie star Frankie Cheung (Jacky Cheung). On the two year anniversary of the death of his family, Kit Li must face their killer “the Doctor” (Kelvin Wong) again. Though this time “the Doctor” has taken control of a skyscraper and is out to steal the crown jewels of the Romanov Dynasty.
High Risk (1995) was writer, director and producer Wong Jing’s response to Die Hard (1989). But it was also a way for him to settle a score with Jackie Chan. The character of Frankie Cheung is a deliberately satirical portrayal of Chan. Wong Jing depicts the superstar Chan as a womanizing moron who uses a stunt double for all of his greatest feats. There’s a lot of venom in High Risk for Chan and all because the actor opted not to work with Wong Jing again.
As mean spirited as Wong Jing’s character assassination is, it’s still uproariously funny. Frankie Cheung is the comic foil the film needs to balance the straight-laced heroics of the Jet Li character. Of course, Wong Jing is always Wong Jing so High Risk is brimming with bizarre tonal shifts and horny adolescent humor. On the whole High Risk isn’t as over the top or as tasteless as most Wong Jing productions are. The film feels very much a part of the more mainstream action movie genre.
There are shades of Wong Jing’s Naked Killer (1992) in High Risk that come in the form of the characters Fai-fai (Valerie Chow) and Helen Vu (Chingmy Yau). Yau, who starred in Naked Killer, plays a sassy reporter who is also Jet Li’s love interest while Chow’s character Fai-fai is a lethal assassin. Despite the occasional rape joke, these female characters are allowed to shine and through their own agency quietly subvert the norms of the genre.
All in all I would rank High Risk as one of the better Wong Jing films that I have seen. It isn’t the madcap game changer that Naked Killer was, but it isn’t the exercise in bad taste that so many of his films seem to be. Jet Li is always amazing to watch and is likely the major draw here. It’s worth seeing, especially if you’re in the mood to see Jackie Chan taken down a peg.
