"Come Drink with Me" starts with a ruthless gang of bandits attempting and failing to rescue their leader who has been condemned to death. At least they escape with Zhang(Wong Chung), the son of the local governor, who they are planning to exchange for their leader in five days' time. If that does not work, they will
kill him, figuring they will at least break even.(Come to think of it, they are not doing so badly on their own.) Soon enough, Golden Swallow(Cheng Pei-Pei) shows up at the local tavern to negotiate and demonstrate that she can play with the big boys...While not as polished as some of its younger cousins(the editing leaves something to be desired), "Come Drink with Me" is still an enjoyable action movie whose best scenes are the ones where the characters size each other up. On the minus side, as cool a cat as Drunken Cat(Yueh Hua) is, the movie becomes less interesting the more he takes center stage along with unnecessary subplots and mysticism.(Hey, I was prepared to overlook the musical numbers.) It would have been best to have left him as a people's champion for a third way between the government and the brigands.
March 6, 2009
