Director Benny Chan and staff do a mighty fine job with their cops and robbers story, Invisible Target. Seven orphans who grew up in battle torn countries take on most of the Hong Kong police force. These orphans mean business as they go about their criminal activities. The movie is almost all kinetic action, chases where the actors seem to jump 20 feet down from roof top to roof top, as the HK police try to stop the gang from getting the loot they are after. There are dull sections,especially when Jaycee Chan is describing his bland philosophy of policing, but, hey, the Chinese censors won't allow movies to be released on the mainland unless they put the police in a good light.
In Invisible Target, you don't see any police (aided by goons hired by real estate developers) clubbing farmers whose land was stolen, so a new factory can be built, enriching the local Communist Party boss who gets an ownership share in the factory. In the Shanxi province that would be the brick factories that used kidnapped children and mentally challenged adults as slave labor. But dealing with life's grim reality in one of the world's great bastions of robber baron capitalism would be too dull for most viewers, besides getting the HK filmmaker in big trouble with the People's Public Security Bureau if he or she ever set foot in mainland China.
So Benny Chan and company go the crime drama route, with shootings, car chases and a great explosion sequence at the start that keys in a major plot element. If there is one thing wrong with this movie, it is another scene at the start where Jaycee Chan's cop gives a ticket to a guy for parking illegally, a big mouth who is out with his young son. When Jackie Chan's cop character in Police Story 2 stopped and ticketed a line of trucks (all Nissan trucks, then and now a Chan corporate sponsor), it showed Chan was no nonsense when it came to his job. Jaycee's parking ticket scene is a crummy way to introduce his character, people nowadays don't like cops or anyone else who gives out parking tickets.
Invisible Target is a good way to spend a little over two hours watching a very well made if improbable crime story.
