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Watch Movies Online: Full Contact

There are a lot of movies that actually have the title Full Contact, so to be clear, we’re talking about the one with Chow Yun Fat, directed by Ringo Lam. The original title was Chivalrous Thief Gau Fei, and the film was essentially an attempt to bring old world, white knight chivalry to the modern action movie genre. It’s really one of the best of the Heroic Bloodshed films if you’re a fan of John Woo, so next time you want to watch movies online and you want some great action, give it a download.

The film stars Chow Yun Fat as Gau Fei, a chivalrous thief, bouncer, body guard, biker gang leader and general all around tough guy. He really brings some style to the role, wearing a Harley Davidson shirt as he rides a Honda bike, smokes black and mild cigars and wears a red bandana and a leather vest. It looks really quite cool on him, but this tough guy persona didn’t go over well in Hong Kong, where he’s primarily seen as a charming comic hero. He’s really the Asian George Clooney, even if, in the US, he’s been marketed as the Asian Bruce Willis.

The story follows Gau Fei, a chivalrous thief… Also a bouncer at a nightclub where his girlfriend dances. He’s basically a knock around guy who gets in over his head when his cousin borrows some money from a local triad thug. Gau Fei shows up to save his cousin from the loan sharks and winds up with more than he bargained for, so he has to flee the city while he pulls off a major heist to pay the loan shark back before he returns home.

The film follows him on a journey to Thailand where he hopes to pull off a big score to pay off the Triad loan shark menacing his cousin. There he is betrayed by his partners, and must find his way back to Hong Kong where he can exact revenge on the ones who set him up. However, he also must find redemption for himself and his friends along the way.

The film is really just gorgeous, focusing on rainy streets, burning buildings, there’s a lot of red and blue, fire and water imagery in the film, and the result is one of the most dreamlike, beautiful action movies ever made, matched only by Johnnie To’s Exiled some fifteen years later.

The flick is sort of rare on DVD, so if you want to check it out, you’ll have to download it. It really is worth a look, though, if you’re a fan of action, and especially if you’re a fan of the Hong Kong Heroic Bloodshed era of action flicks.

The film is sort of a fond farewell to that era, actually, having come out in 1992, the same year as Hard Boiled. This was just before the director Ringo Lam and John Woo went to the United States to create Hollywood action flicks with Jean Claude Van Damme. Hardcore fans were a little less than excited about those films, but it was nice to see that they’d keep working after the Chinese takeover of HK.

The film has a sense of nostalgia, sentimentality, and a lot of beautiful images you’ll just find yourself wanting to stare at for hours on end. It really is a unique action flick, having used bullet time ten years before The Matrix gave it a try.

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