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Asian cinema: Hong Kong film
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Review | Against All Odds movie review: plucky Hong Kong-set WWII thriller punches above its weight

A downed US pilot’s rescue entwines with a plot to assassinate a Japanese official in a gripping, intimate WWII thriller set in Hong Kong

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Han Geng in a still from Against All Odds (category IIB, Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Japanese), directed by Lau Ho-leung. Mitchell Hoog and Louise Wong co-star.
James Marsh

3/5 stars

Set in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong towards the end of World War II, Against All Odds sees the attempted rescue of an American pilot intersecting with an assassination plot to eliminate a top Japanese official.

Written and directed by Lau Ho-leung (Caught in Time) and boasting a mostly Hong Kong crew, this mainland-produced wartime thriller may lack the epic scale flaunted by so many of its contemporaries, but spins an entertaining yarn that should nonetheless capture the attention of local audiences.
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American actor Mitchell Hoog (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) stars as James Harnett, one of the American Flying Tigers, who famously flew alongside their Chinese counterparts during the campaign.

After completing a bombing raid on Whampoa Docks in Hong Kong, Harnett spies a Japanese radio station in the hills behind Lion Rock. Before he can report it, however, he is shot down by Japanese pilot Igarashi (Joey Iwanaga) and is immediately captured.

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A plucky band of Communist guerrillas, led by Dan (Philip Ng Wan-lung), mount a rescue attempt, knowing that Harnett is to be presented before top-ranking Japanese officer Ichijo (Soji Arai) at a Wan Chai bowling alley.

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