Sammo Hung’s “Dirty Dozen in Vietnam” is a great action movie and one of the standout kung-fu pictures of the eighties. The story is standard: a Chinese military commander (Lam Ching-Ying) takes a bunch of criminals into battle with the caveat that they’re an expendable bunch. Their mission: locate a munitions dump left behind by U.S. soldiers before the bad guys find it and use the weaponry for their dastardly plans. 

Sammo Hung plays one of the convicts and Yuen Biao appears as Rat Chieh, a crafty profiteer who aids our boys in the bush. His uncle is played by Oscar-winning Dr. Haing S. Ngor from The Killing Fields. The characterization is non-existent but the film gets high marks on the action meter. The stunts are impressive and the kung-fu, while strangely anti-climactic, is staged extremely well. There’s definite fun to be had here, especially with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao in their prime. Joyce Godenzi (Mrs. Sammo Hung) received a Best Actress nomination for her part as a Cambodian patriot. (Kozo 1996)

DVD (Hong Kong)
Region 3 NTSC
Joy Sales
16x9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks
Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Removable English and Chinese Subtitles
Various Extras
*Also Available on Blu-ray Disc

image courtesy of Fox Home Entertainment