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Mission: Impossible
The Final Reckoning

Director – Christopher McQuarrie – 2022 – US – Cert. 12a – 163m

*****

Tom Cruise’s eighth and director Christopher McQuarrie’s fourth Mission: Impossible outing delivers up to par globe-trotting action set pieces and considerably more plot than last time – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, May 21st

When Tom Cruise made his first Mission: Impossible movie (Brian DePalma, 1996), no-one foresaw that the property, already a successful and long-running TV series emblazoned into the cultural zeitgeist along with its immediately recognisable Lalo Schifrin theme tune, would turn into an equally successful movie franchise. With each passing movie, it has seemed a better and better fit for Tom Cruise – while he has a wide-ranging career, this franchise is today what his name immediately brings to mind. After several directors, the franchise and Cruise somehow found another director -actually a writer director – who seemed to fit the franchise as well as he did. Chrstopher McQuarrie did uncredited rewrites on the fourth entry Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and has directed and written or co-written every entry in the franchise since. Watching these films, you sense a shorthand developing between producer-star and writer-director, with each film feeling more assured than its predecessor.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Lady Reporter
(Shi Jie Da Shai
aka
The Blonde Fury,
Righting Wrongs II,
Above The Law II)

Director – Mang Hoi – 1989 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 90m

Movie ***

Action Sequences *****

Female FBI agent Cynthia Rothrock is sent to Hong Kong to put a stop to a counterfeit money scam operated by an editor out of a newspapers premises – on Blu-ray from Monday, June 26th

With New York facing a deluge of counterfeit banknotes originating in Hong Kong, and involving several felons with considerable martial arts fighting skills, agent Cindy (Cynthia Rothrock) is sent from San Francisco to Hong Kong to put the forgers out of business. She stays with her friend Judy (Elizabeth Lee) and begins working undercover as a reporter for the paper under Miss Miu. Going out to cover a fire with her camera, Cindy enters the blazing building and rescues a child, attracting the attention of rival publication photojournalist Shorty (director Mang Hoi) and his colleague (Chin Siu-ho). Shorty’s dad (Wu Ma) is the rival newspaper’s editor.

Cindy attempts to infiltrate the counterfeiting operation, but is discovered by Miu and escapes before she can see anything. Shorty, meanwhile, gets a lucky break and witnesses the abduction of Judy’s father, Prosecutor Yu (Roy Chiao), who is preparing the court case against the man behind the counterfeiting operation, newspaper editor Wang Dak (Ronny Yu).… Read the rest