Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Actually I was surprised after having watched "House of Fury", because I didn't really expect much from it because of the people on the cast list. Usually Charlene Choi, Stephen Fung and Gillian Chung make rather silly movies in the romantic comedy or boring action genre.But "House of Fury" was pulled up by a rather unusually interesting storyline, which took me by surprise. Plus it was also brought up a notch by Anthony Wong Chau-Sang and Michael Wong. And the action and martial arts scenes in the movie were also quite good. Funny that when I was younger (around the time "Heroic Trio" was released) I wasn't much fan of Anthony Wong, but I have come to enjoy his movies, and he does actually have a good talent for acting.The story in "House of Fury" is about chiropractor Yue Sie Bo who tells a lot of action-packed stories with agents, ninjas and martial arts, but his two children Nicky and Natalie are embarrassed of him and his stories, and they don't believe them at all. But when their father is kidnapped and the two children have to find a retired agent, as they are threatened by Rocco who will kill their father if they don't do so within a day, they come to question whether or not their father has been telling the truth all along.The action in "House of Fury" is nicely choreographed, and there is no surprise here that there is a lot of usage of wires in this movie, it is a Hong Kong action movie after all. So be prepared to see a lot of rather unrealistic stuff, but it is still entertaining.Now, "House of Fury" isn't anywhere near action movies like "Hard Boiled", "Protégé" or "Infernal Affairs", but still it proved to be rather enjoyable and entertaining. And throughout the 101 minutes, the movie really didn't have any dull moments.

Pacy as hell Kung-Fu-Comedy with "Twins Effect"-like humor, but tighter and funnier in every possible way. If you thought, Wire-Fu can't be exciting, think again: Yuen Woo-Ping has put together some incredible powerful and extensive choreographies employing wide-ranged techniques, while still giving his actors enough groundwork in order to make them seem believable. Even darling Gillian Chung gets her legs high enough in the air to make a scary opponent for her enemies. Anthony Wong's roguish imitation of a Bruce Lee-like Fighting-Style had me cracking up in an instant, and that Caucasian kid's high-velocity handling of the Pole was nothing short of awesome. "House of Fury" is Prime Exampel of how a modern day Kung-Fu-Flick should look like.

Being a fan of the Twins Effect movies, of course I had to catch the Twins in 'House of Fury', too. It's an okay movie - in fact, I like it better and better every time I see it. It starts out with a great fight sequence, pitting Anthony Wong against a pack of ninjas (incl. one that teleports, bamfing around like Nightcrawler from the X-Men). It proceeds to become a Spy Kids style lighthearted martial arts action adventure, with a bad guy trying to abduct and kill some retired secret agents to get revenge.Out of the two Twins, the less interesting one, Charlene Choi, isn't in the movie very much. Deliciously, the focus is on Gillian Chung, who has the superior looks and fighting skills. The story isn't great, and many details that would be necessary to make it believable are just not there (like, seeing the brother and sister train a bit would have been nice, to explain how they are suddenly better fighters than their secret agent parents and mentors). The fight scenes themselves are technically not great, but certainly very entertaining and action-filled; definitely the high points of the movie.Since the fights were pretty serious, however, I missed seeing something a bit more deadly and powerful. When the bad guys want to kill the main characters, why do they just push each other around and always letting each other get back on their feet before continuing the fight? I must say that I was looking for some slightly harsher fighting here - it would have been the realistic thing in a series of fights that were supposed to be deadly serious. But I guess it was a family-friendly movie, and so they didn't want to show anything nasty. That's too bad. I'm not usually a fan of extreme violence, but this was so un-extreme that it was almost silly, everything considered.The ending wasn't very good, either; they just left the bad guy alive. What's to stop him from just continuing where he left off, and sending his assassins to kill them all over again?? But, since the big main thing about the movie was to ogle Gillian Chung, I have to say I found it pretty satisfying, overall. I was also very impressed with Stephen Fung, the 31-year-old director, who also played Gillian's older brother, being passed off as a teenager, and pretty believably, too. And he could fight! Well, not like a real pro, but passably. I liked him a lot and hope to catch him in other movies as well.My rating: 8 out of 10.

The story tells of Yue Siu Bo(Anthony Wong, The Medallion) who lives in Hong Kong running his own Chinese Health clinic. Here he raises his two children High school student Natalie(Charlene Choi, The Twins Effect) and Ocean World Dolphin instructor Nicky(Stephen Fung,The Gen-X Cops, also the film's director). who he also taught martial arts. Both of them have grown weary of their father because of his constant bragging of how he's defeated many opponents in battle, they have just believed he is always lying.Then one fateful day, a wheel chair bound man by the name of Rocco(Micheal Wong, First Option) arrives at Siu Bo's clinic looking for a man by the name of Tai Chi-Lung, the man responsible for Rocco's condition. When Siu Bo tells him he has no idea who he is talking about, Rocco leaves and later that night send his henchmen to capture Siu Bo.When Nicky discovers his father has been kidnapped, he goes to the clinic to investigate only to discover that his father was once in fact a secret agent for British Intelligence.Soon, Rocco finds out that the information he is looking for is hidden inside two charms worn by both Nicky and Natalie, he dispatches his team of lethal martial arts assassins to retrieve them.Now Nicky and Natalie, with th help of Natalie's Boyfriend Jason(Daniel Wu, Around The World In 80 Days) and her best friend Ella(Charlene Choi, The Twins Effect) whom Nicky has a crush on, must use the martial arts skills they learnt from their father to defend themselves and save Siu Bo before it's too late.Phew, now thats a synopsis.This is the second directorial outing for Star Stephen Fung, who's previous film, Enter The Phoenix, was a fun look at the gangster genre which dominated the box office during the 1980's, so his second film was an eagerly awaited film and boy let me tell you it was worth it.This movie was so fun, it's probably one of the best movie to come of Hong Kong in 2005. Firstly I'll comment of story and acting.The story is probably the films weakest point, mainly due to Anthony Wong's character being very open about his past as a secret agent, you thin being part of British Intelligence he'd know the meaning of discretion. The plot as well as an action movie is also in some ways a domestic comedy, with the characters many conflicts being due to the fact that the children think their father is a lair and the father thinks he is no longer fit to look after them.This is where some of the humour stems from in a way, although the humour is little weak, it did give me a few chuckles here and there. Now plotting and story aside, let's talk about the acting. For a film like this not much is really called upon of the actors. It's worth noting that this was executive produced by Jackie Chan so the end product is very family friendly, so no graphic violence or bad language of any kind, which isn't a bad thing in this case. Anthony Wong gives the strongest performance in the movie giving some much needed gravitas to what is really a flawed character. Stephen Fung does a good job as always as the frustrated and weary Nicky, while Gillian Chung has improved greatly since her performance in The Twins Effect.Daniel Wu gives fine support considering he does very little in the movie but the worst performances come from Charlene Choi, who is given some of the worst lines, and Micheal Wong, who was just too wooden to make the character seem menacing in anyway. Also veteran Hong Kong actor/producer/director Wu Ma provides strong support as Uncle Chiu.Now lets get to the good stuff, the martial arts fighting. Which has to be said is the best thing about the movie. They where directed by martial arts action supremo Yuen Woo Ping(The Matrix Trilogy, Kill Bill 1 & 2) who has once again proved why he's one of the best in the business. He does a great job of making everyone who fights in the movie look highly skilled, even thought most of the actor are not martial artists. Each fight is a joy to watch and recalls the glory days of martial arts action cinema in the 70's and the 80's.To finish off, this is an extremely fun film and I highly recommend that if your a fan of Kung Fu action movies you go and buy the DVD without hesitation as you will not be disappointed.I gave this film 5/5 stars!