Review: This is a very rare style of Hong Kong movie, it is a military action movie similar to what the Americans do. This is the first of the genre that we have ever seen, and there are not many others. The story takes place in Vietnam but this movie is no where close to the American style Vietnam movies, it is more similar to American movies about world war II made in the late 50`s early 60`s. Due to the very similaristic genre and setting to an American movie, it is here that you can see a strong cultural difference. This group of rag tag soldiers are no way like their American counterparts, the main difference I see is that in an American Vietnam movie, most of the soldiers would be hot shots (I'm better than all of you attitudes or something along those lines), now on the other hand the group in Eastern Condors is very modest and likable, which what adds so much to the film. As for the storyline it is similar to the American movies as in get into enemy territory, get to the objecting and kill everyone in between.

Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the soldiers were likable, they chose an excellent cast for this movie. One of the best quality in Hong Kong movies is how they end up making the characters in a movie likable and that you get attached to them. We find it adds so much more to a movie, this is something that you rarely see in American movies, well recent ones at least. The characters in this movie reminded me of those in those World War II movies for the 50`s (like The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen) you had the same feeling for the characters in that movie. All in all the characters were great but considering the setting there was not room for any development or evolution of the characters.

Like any old war movie you can expect plenty of action, at least 3/4 of this movie is pure action. As for the quality of action its quite good, you have the typical machine guns and grenades also on top of that you have some really stunning martial arts. We are serious, the martial arts are very nice in this film, its not standard Kung Fu or anything but its very impressive visually. Hey, it's a Sammo Hung movie after all so this movie certainly takes the gold for action.

The subtitles were once again a good quality on this DVD version. This movie is one of those rare special finds, it is something I did not expect to see in a Hong Kong film. They took a Vietnam story and they really made it work, with the combination of great characters and action packed scenes, they could not go wrong with this movie. Don't expect a deep story from this movie, its very simple, consider this movie as action entertainment served up on a silver platter. Any war movie fan would love this movie along with anyone else who enjoys action.