Ringo Lam is probably best known in the West for City on Fire which Tarantino "borrowed" the final act for Reservior Dogs but this amazing action from 1992 is just stunning.
Chow Yun Fat plays Gho Fei who finds himself caught up in crime to pay off a local loan shark who is threatening to kill his friend Sam(Anthony Wong) - this embroils him with local gay gangster Judge(an outragiously camp turn from Simon Yam) and his pychotic gang.
They agree to steal a truck load of weapons but Judge has agreed to kill Gho for the loan shark who Gho had humilated - he also turns Sam and gets him to betray Gho.....a third friend is killed and an entire innocent family are wiped out in the crossfire - Gho is apparantly killed and Sam takes up with Mona(Ann Bridewater) who was Gho's girl.....and the scene is set for blood soaked retribution.

Gho retires to a Buddist monestry to re-cover then plans his revenge - at first Sam thinks he will kill him but Gho uses him to find out where the arms are then steals them back from Judge thus setting up the apocalyptic climax.
Lam directs like a man possesed moving from one overblown set piece to another - mass shoot-outs,martial arts fights and huge explosions are the order of the day with a an increasing body count - as always Chow Yun-Fat is great(not quite as cool as he was in The Killer) but not far off - mounted atop his moterbike reaking havoc and Wong is equally good as the guilt ridden Sam with Yam camping it up mixing this with a cold sadism.
There is a fantastic shoot out in a night club that uses bullet time(a full 5 years before The Matrix) and the action is brilliantly done and the ending is just incredible - set in driving rain on a dockside surrounded by exploding,burning cars the final face off is as good as anything from Woo or even Leone......its just breathtaking...

Just a shame Lam has been reduced to making Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.....

Full Contact is one of Lam's best films, although not as good as 'City on Fire'. Partly one of thr reasons his Hollywood carrer never took off is because he is more a 'thriller' director rather than 'action' director like John Woo. Lam can do action as 'Full Contact' proves but his characters are usually better written and more rounded than the characters who normally populate Hong Kong action films.
It's worth checking out 'Red Alert' which was shown on Film Four a couple of years ago, Lam's take on Michael Mann's 'Heat' and a spectacular car chase replacing Mann's 20min gun-fight.