Righting Wrongs
Righting Wrongs (also known as Above the Law, and known in the Philippines as Fight to Win II) is a 1986 Hong Kong action film produced and directed by Corey Yuen, and also produced by and starring Yuen Biao, both of whom also serve as the film's action directors. The film also co-stars Cynthia Rothrock, Melvin Wong, Wu Ma, Roy Chiao and director Yuen himself. "Righting Wrongs" is the one of Yuen Biao's better known films that he made without film industry compatriots Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan. Title. The film's Hong Kong English  language title is "Righting Wrongs". The international version (dubbed in English) is titled "Above the Law", which was also the title adopted for The Weinstein Company's 2007 US DVD release on their Dragon Dynasty label. Plot. Jason Ha Ling-ching is a dedicated, by the books prosecutor who has tried to maintain patience and tolerance under the somewhat flimsy laws of the court. However, when his mentor is publicly gunned down in New Zealand and the key witness of Ha's latest case and his entire family is wiped out overnight, Ha can no longer go by the book . Ha's initial plan is to take the law into his own hands and kill the two men he believes called for his witness' murder. He is successful in killing the first, which causes the Hong Kong Police Department to wake up and take action to regain order. Enter Senior Inspector Cindy Si, who is put on the case to find the killer under her superior, Superintendent Wong Ching-wai. However, when Ha goes to kill the second defendant, Chow Ting-kwong, he is already dead. Unbeknownst to them, both of the defendants were working under an even higher power , known only as "Crown". However, it is soon discovered that "Crown" is none other than Superintendent Wong, who was also Chow's killer. Once Si realizes that Wong is the true mastermind behind all of the recent murders taking place, she and Ha finally work together to bring him in to prove he is not "above the law". Si storms through an airport hangar to confront Wong, but is fatally impaled by Wong using a hand drill. Ha arrives at the scene to fight Wong in the hangar and aboard a plane. Ha kills Wong with an axe to the  back of the neck and jumps off the plane before it crashes, but succumbs to his wounds as his body floats on the ocean. Alternate ending. In an alternate ending, both Si and Ha survive. Ha, however, is arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter (the Mandarin dub has him given a life sentence for first-degree murder). Production. According to Rothrock, Biao sustained a back injury while filming the scene where his character jumped off the second story of a house, despite landing feet-first on some padding dressed up as grass. The film's original  ending was met with a negative reception in Taiwan; because of this, Rothrock stopped filming "China O'Brien" and flew from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to reshoot the ending for the Mandarin and international versions.