Hong Kong action movies can be hard enough to swallow under the best of circumstances, but this post-Vietnam War variation (i.e. rip-off) of 'The Dirty Dozen' lacks even the guilty pleasures of its predecessors. The hard-boiled heroes, all of course handpicked from military prison (and numbering less than a dozen: several don't survive past the opening credits), are dropped by parachute into the jungles of Southeast Asia with orders to blow up an abandoned U.S. weapons dump before it falls into Communist hands. Predictably, this particular semi-dozen take most of their cues from Rambo's revisionist warmongering, with the only surprise being an unexpected, brazen theft of the notorious Russian roulette scene from 'The Deer Hunter', gratuitously reproduced almost shot for shot. The film doesn't, thankfully, take itself very seriously (you'll notice nobody simply falls down after being shot: a martial arts trampoline somersault is always required), but it lacks the visual nerve and narrative panache of the best dumb-fun action adventures. And yes, the Hiang S. Ngor mugging his way through several scenes is the same Academy Award winning actor from 'The Killing Fields'.
Review of Eastern Condors
