This is a series of Hong Kong action movies staring Cynthia Khan, a fairly famous Hong Kong actress. As with many Hong Kong movies, it is not the plot or the theme that matters, but rather the action. This is a typical movie, except the leading character is a woman, and this makes things interesting. The woman is promoted to the detective department and her uncle, who is also her guardian, runs it. As such he decides to keep her safe, even though it has been shown that she can seriously handle herself in dangerous situations.The bad guys in this movie are three members of the Red Army from Japan. They make a deal with a Japanese jewellery king and rob one of his exhibitions. During the flight, the partner of a cop is killed, and he vowels vengeance. They flee to Hong Kong, but discover that the jewellery is fake, and vowel vengeance on the jewellery king. The cop also travels to Hong Kong to deal with these terrorist.Once again, this seems to follow a theme of Hong Kong movies: the police are very friendly to each other, to the point of incompetence: all except for Cynthia Kahn, who simply wants to be on the team. In a nutshell, this is a fairly good movie - the action, martial arts and everything else is there, but it is quite standard. I still enjoyed it, but thought Naked Killer was a billion times better.

There's never enough of Cynthia's fighting or her lovely face. I love watching her fight.I think that she's so beautiful. She would be a great candidate for a long shot of her face. Notice the long shot on Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo, or the shorter long shots of her in So Close. Tarentino used that well with Pam Grier in Pulp Fiction. The 8 minute opening of Natalie Portman's face in Free Zone was pure bliss.The scene at the beginning where she rips her skirt to fight the bad guy, wow.What I couldn't tolerate was the horrible dubbing. I didn't know they spoke Cantonese in Japan.The love scene was so HK. I'm from HK. It wasn't sensuous, it wasn't realistic, it wasn't believably passionate. The love scenes in Tampopo were shockingly erotic and passionate. The sex scenes in Korea's Bad Guy made me feel such genuine disgust, but it was real.Logic, are at least a semi-smooth flow of credible story line, was missing.That leaves nothing but more Cynthia. I don't know, maybe I'm just gushing. For me, never enough Cynthia.

Hong Kong action films of the Eighties were so bloody tough and so beautifully made, especially films that had budgets (like this one).Against the bland, CGI-driven Hollywood action flicks of the Noughties, a film like IN THE LINE OF DUTY 3 looks like an artifact from another planet.Everything you see was done for real. Every sequence was staged by stunties who risked their lives.There is an amazing relationship between two Japanese lovers (Michiko Nishiwaki and Stuart Ong) in this mind-blowing film. Ong is dying of leukeamia, and in one scene, they make love while Ong's hair comes off in Nishiwaki's hand. Later, after Ong is killed, Nishiwaki vows a brutal revenge that we clearly understand because we've been intimate with them.It is this kind of attention to nuance that lifts this Arthur Wong-Brandy Yuen-directed pic to classic status.Cynthia Khan, debuting as D & B Films' replacement for Michaelle Khan, does a terrific job as a cop assaulted at ever juncture by the murderous villains.A sequence involving a jewellery heist is one of the best of its kind and possesses a kineticism rarely seen in any films these days.Ditto an incredibly violent and realistic fight sequence between genre stalwart Dick Wei and Hiroshi Fujioka's hardcore cop.Relentless, operatic and explosive.

After the first two "In the Line Of Duty" movies, I was very pleased on how well the series was doing. It keeps getting better!!! Cynthia Khan did a fantastic job taking over for Michelle Yeoh. In my opinion, she's better than Michelle Yeoh, and executes her martial arts skills more aggressively. The casting of Dick Wei and Michiko Nishiwaki as the villains were great. You need baddies like these to give the hero more of a challenge. Look out for cameos by Melvin Wong, Robin Shou, Eric Tsang, and Richard Ng. Some of the cameos were for comedy purposes, and some actually had a purpose for the plot of the movie.The plot of the movie was okay. It wasn't too simple or complicated. Cynthia Khan's training as a police officer justifies her entry into the "In The Line Of Duty" series. There really isn't a strong supporting cast except the Japanese cop that helped her trail the baddies. Great comedy supported the movie and her crazy overprotected uncle was stupid funny.The action scenes for the movie were choreographed by Brandy Yuen, who is Yuen Woo Ping's sister. When I found that out, I was sure that the movie was going to have some hardcore action scenes in them. The warehouse boat fight scene was raw and gritty. The Japanese cop and the Japanese fugitive duked it out like stone cold street fighters. As the movie progresses and gets deeper, the action gets better. Cynthia Khan versus the baddies, a fight to the death!! Watch the movie and find out who inflicts devastating injuries.Overall, great entry for Cynthia Khan into the series. In my opinion, the 2nd best in the series. I wish Cynthia would make more action movies these days, but the industry is saturated with too many fake action stars (Matrix AARGGHH!!).Final Judgement: ****/****