Call of Heroes

Benny Chan's lively period martial arts tale puts an eastern "wire-fu" spin on the western, as a sheriff arrests a man for murder only to discover he is an untouchable warlord whose forces are poised to overrun the town. The maniacal Cao Shaolun (Louis Koo) holds all the aces despite the death sentence hanging over him, with lawman Yang Kenan (Sean Lau) increasingly in danger from a jittery populace fearful of reprisals if justice is carried out. There are shades of High Noon as time ticks away to the hour of execution, with Lau a fair match for Gary Cooper in the morally upright stakes. He can crack a mean whip, too, and legendary action director Sammo Hung makes creative use of an array of lethal weaponry in the excitingly choreographed fight scenes. Koo's cackling, child-murdering psychopath may take boo-hiss villainy to ludicrously high levels, but the backstory between friends-turned-adversaries Eddie Peng Yu Yan and Wu Jing offers more character shading, while a late gear change gives the potentially downbeat story a rousing finish.