Inferno Thunderbolt

IFD’s two-into-one formula strikes again in this hodgepodge thriller from 1985, but conspicuously lacking the usual martial arts scenes one would normally associate with a Godfrey Ho film. In this effort, Ho used Chen Yao-Chi’s 1982 Taiwanese feature The Anger (失節) as the basis for his new film, which as usual features newly inserted footage featuring Richard Harrison, bad dubbing, and the mandatory viewer confusion as the film jumps from scene to scene on impulse. Worthy of mention is a lame matriarch who shoots arrows from her wheelchair The Amazing Mr No Legs style!

A young female singer is abducted and murdered, her body dumped on waste ground together with an employee of the Rockford’s — a rich mob-like crime family. In order to find out more about her sister’s death, Alison Liu (Luk Siu-Fan), starts work at the ‘Joy Palace’ — a Rockford family owned bordello, complete with a small mud wrestling ring!

Claire (Claire Angela), a research journalist working for the Asian Times newspaper, lives with her Kowloon policeman husband Richard (Richard Harrison), but soon after publishing an exposé on the Rockford family, starts receiving threats — eventually being viciously beaten to death by a chain-wielding thug. Richard, with the help of a police buddy, sets out on a mission to track down the killer.

In-between sequences periodically updating the audience with Richard’s search for the hitman, Alison manages to capture both the attention and the heart of the Rockford family’s eldest son (Lam Joi-Pau), much to the annoyance of his suspicious wheelchair bound mother (Gua Ah-Leh). With the help of an old friend, Michael (Don Wong Tao), she discovers that the Rockfords are involved in smuggling drugs hidden in wine bottles, but this discovery comes with a price: her own undercover activities are exposed.