Magic Crystal

Rock Alien Line

Magic Crystal
aka Mo fei cui
Hong Kong 1986
Directed by Jing Wong
88 Films Blu Ray Zone B

Magic Crystal is another of these great, 80s Hong Kong action films that companies like Eureka Masters Of Cinema and, in this case, 88 Films have been releasing onto a largely unsuspecting public over here in the UK. This one co-stars a young Andy Lau and a young Cynthia Rothrock as two of ‘the good guys’ who are out to stop the shenanigans of a Russian gangster played by Richard Norton (who’s lethal and ruthless but who has a magnetic and likeable personality in this one)*. Norton would also go on to co-star with Rothrock in her big break out US hits, China O’ Brien and its sequel, among others.

In this, Andy Lau plays... um... Andy Lo, part of a special, ‘get in trouble and we’ll disavow all knowledge’ police force unit called Falcons. After setting up his character and his comic relief side kick (we’re back to very broad toilet humour in this one... yikes) he gets involved with an archeologist friend in Greece, who is killed because of a green crystal he has found in an underground cavern. However, said crystal is hidden secretly in Andy’s sister’s kid’s luggage and, when they return to Hong Kong, the rock bonds with the kid, starts talking to him and uses its powers of mind control and the ability to grant superhuman powers, etc, to try and stay out of the clutches of the bad guys.

By now, Andy’s dead friend’s sister has gotten involved, as well as his own expert fighter sister... not to mention two Interpol agents, one of whom is Cindy, played by Cynthia Rothrock (why the heck is she always playing a character called Cindy in half of the Hong Kong movies she was in?). So there are action and chase scenes aplenty in this movie and, yeah, it’s really not bad.

I did find a lot of the humour way too crude for my liking (which seems to be a problem I have with a lot of these Hong Kong movies... I prefer it when they rein it in) but a lot of the fight choreography is impressive and there’s a quite surreal sequence where a licentious, comic relief character has his feet and hands swapped... which makes for some, well, interesting viewing.

There are lots of little Easter eggs in this for movie lovers too. For instance, when the young kid is given super kung fu skills by the crystal so he can defeat the school bully, he runs his thumb over his nose before going into action, just like Bruce Lee used to. And the end sequences, where several characters gather for a big fight in the underground chambers in Greece, is full of straight rips offs of the archeological trap scenes from the Indiana Jones movies... not to mention a bit of a rip off, both sonically and, perhaps, a little in the look of... the final alien of Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. But on a much diminished budget, obviously... this is beyond bargain bucket in terms of the films it’s... um... homaging.

But I honestly didn’t mind it... despite the tone of a lot of the humour, I quite liked this and it’s another entertaining ‘beat ‘em up’ from Cynthia Rothrock, doing her thing on a blown out knee for a lot of the time, apparently... having to go full on kung fu after she’d injured said knee doing a scene earlier on in the shoot. Although, why the heck an Interpol agent would just happen to be carrying a case holding an unfolding spear rather than, you know, arming herself with a gun, is anybody’s guess.

Like many of these Hong Kong action movies of the time, Magic Crystal has a synth-pop kind of soundtrack but, it’s not the most irritating one I’ve heard and it pulls it weight when it needs to, helping the pace of the film when it most needs it. So, yeah, I’m glad I’m finally piecing together these early Hong Kong action films of future stars courtesy of some of the UK (for a change) boutique labels. Keep ‘em coming.

*Alas, Mr. Norton died a few weeks before this review was published, at the end of March 2025.