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* TimeBomb: Hsiao-wu wakes up to one ticking in his face right in the openingf scene. It's a dud.

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* TimeBomb: Hsiao-wu wakes up to one ticking in his face right in the openingf opening scene. It's a dud.
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* BewareTheSillyOnes: Hou-hu; a prankster, joker, klutz... and [[CombatParkour parkour expert]], KnifeNut, and all-round lethal ass-kicker who takes names as easily as Hsiao-wu, even [[spoiler: defeating the mercenary leader at the end of the film]].

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* BewareTheSillyOnes: Hou-hu; a prankster, joker, klutz... and [[CombatParkour parkour expert]], KnifeNut, knife expert, and all-round lethal ass-kicker who takes names as easily as Hsiao-wu, even [[spoiler: defeating the mercenary leader at the end of the film]].
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You Gotta Have Blue Hair is no longer a trope.


* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Dawn, who have blonde hair.

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* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Dawn, who have blonde hair.
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Skunk Stripe is no longer a trope. Zero Context Examples and examples that do fit existing tropes will be deleted.


* SkunkStripe: Four of them on Madam Tong, a minor drug leader Hsiao-wu confronts early in the film. One on the right side of her head, three on the left.
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--> ([[spoiler:Cue a '''MASSIVE''' explosion in the middle of the freighter, destroying much of the vessel's middle portion, killing plenty of mooks and leading to a ChainReactionDestruction where five more explosions of equally huge size start wrecking the freighter]])

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--> ([[spoiler:Cue a '''MASSIVE''' explosion in the middle of the freighter, destroying much of the vessel's middle portion, killing plenty of mooks and leading to a ChainReactionDestruction PostDefeatExplosionChain where five more explosions of equally huge size start wrecking the freighter]])

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* FatBastard: Boss Bao, as ruthless and petty as he is overweight.



* HoldingTheFloor: When Hou-hu, posing as the meth chemist ([[spoiler: since the ''real'' chemist called the Master was killed in the earlier car chase]]) is being held at gunpoint in the drug lab, he spends much of the time joking around,

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* HoldingTheFloor: When Hou-hu, posing as the meth chemist ([[spoiler: since the ''real'' chemist called the Master was killed in the earlier car chase]]) is being held at gunpoint in the drug lab, he spends much of the time joking around, whining that he cannot work without music, making the two meecenaries guarding him sing, start a musical number... [[spoiler: and silently booby-trapping an oven with highly explosive methane and suddenly rushing out, just as a massive explosion destroys the lab and killing both mercs detaining him]].


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* LeapAndFire: Happens more than once in shootouts.


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* TimeBomb: Hsiao-wu wakes up to one ticking in his face right in the openingf scene. It's a dud.

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* CuttingTheElectronicLeash: When Hsiao-wu had to (reluctantly) accept a call from Xia, with Hou-hu at his side.
--> '''Hsiao-wu''': (deliberately moving the phone a distance away from him) "Xia? I can't hear you. The reception is bad here..."
--> '''Hou-hu''': (snatches the phone from Hsiao-wu and puts on a female voice, pretending to be a phone operator) : "The current line is unaccesible. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience..."



--> ([[spoiler: Cue a '''MASSIVE''' explosion in the middle of the freighter, destroying much of the vessel's middle portion, killing plenty of mooks and leading to a ChainReactionDestruction where five more explosions of equally huge size start wrecking the freighter]])

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--> ([[spoiler: Cue ([[spoiler:Cue a '''MASSIVE''' explosion in the middle of the freighter, destroying much of the vessel's middle portion, killing plenty of mooks and leading to a ChainReactionDestruction where five more explosions of equally huge size start wrecking the freighter]])
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* GratitousEnglish: Boss Bao during the meth deal, for some inexplicable reason. The following exchange is in English in all versions of the film, by the way.

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* GratitousEnglish: GratuitousEnglish: Boss Bao during the meth deal, for some inexplicable reason. The following exchange is in English in all versions of the film, by the way.
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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uvu.PNG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Also known as ''Crouching Tiger, Undercover Dragon''. No, seriously.]]

''Undercover vs. Undercover'', also known as ''Crouching Tiger, Undercover Dragon'' or ''Undercover Punch and Gun'' is a 2019 crime drama and action film starring Philip Ng, Vaness Wu, and Andy On. The movie pays homage to old-school John Woo with its action scenes, as well as having a plot similar to early 2000s police dramas, such as the ''Film/InfernalAffairs'' and ''Film/ColourOfTheTruth'' movies.

Hsiao-wu is an undercover cop investigating a meth-producing syndicate, but after a botched mission which leaves everyone except him dead, he ends up being a suspect of selling out his own police unit. When he ends up being ambushed and knocked unconscious, before waking up in a shipping freighter in the middle of the ocean, Hsiao-wu will have to figure out how to escape before all hell breaks loose.

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!! Undercover vs. Undercover contains the following tropes:

* ActionGirl: Eva, the police lieutenant and FriendlySniper partner of Hsiao-wu. There's also the DarkActionGirl henchwomen duo, Teach and Susan.
* AgonizingStomachWound: [[spoiler: On Hsiao-wu's girlfriend, Dawn. She didn't make it]].
* BackToBackBadasses: Hsiao-wu and Xia during the meth lab shootout, as they move their way down a corridor swarming with mooks, each of them killing a dozen or so as they make their way through. Although two exceptionally dangerous mooks ambushes Hsiao-wu and forces him into an adjacent storeroom, breaking up the two badasses.
* BatterUp: While most of the mooks in the first act's meth deal uses machetes, one uses an aluminum bat, and nearly breaks Hsiao-wu's arm by repeatedly whacking it.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Hou-hu; a prankster, joker, klutz... and [[CombatParkour parkour expert]], KnifeNut, and all-round lethal ass-kicker who takes names as easily as Hsiao-wu, even [[spoiler: defeating the mercenary leader at the end of the film]].
* CombatParkour: Hou-hu does this frequently, notably when chasing the Master's getaway vehicle in the meth plant and in the shipping freighter climax.
* DarkActionGirl: Susan, the ColdSniper henchwoman of Xia. And also Teach, who gets to fight Hsiao-wu one-on-one in the climax.
* DeadlyDodging: In the freighter battle when Hou-hu fights several gun-wielding mercenaries at the same time, he dodges one of their bullets which ends up killing another merc.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: The Master, when attempting to escape from Hsiao-hu and Hou-hu in the meth lab scene. Hou-hu managed to catch up with her thanks to his parkour skills, and ends up [[OutsideRide clinging on top and the side of her vehicle]] as she speeds her way out of the underground escape tunnel.
--> '''The Master''': "You think you can arrest me, you punk? I've been racing ever since you're sucking on your mother's tits!"
* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler: Xia, the BigBad who ends up falling out of a shipping container positioned a hundred meters or so above ground. Hsiao-wu falls together with him, but happens to land on a soft tarp, and later got up to see Xia's dead body right beside him]].
* DualBoss: During the meth plant shootout, Hsiao-wu ends up being disarmed by two BossInMookClothing fighters (one in a slick suit, another in khakis), who battles him simultaneously and sends the fight to a cramped second-floor storeroom full of railings, unsteady walkways, girders and obstacles.
* EliteMook: Xia's personal mercenery team, compared to regular thugs and drug dealers. They are expertly trained, heavily-armed, and [[spoiler: six of them actually survives the movie and are seen retreating after Xia's death]].
* EnemyMine: Xia and Hsiao-hu in the meth lab shootout.
* EvilOldFolks: The unnamed meth chemist only known as "Master", an old woman with a head full of white hair, but is ruthless, willing to manufacture the most powerful drugs to the highest bidder, and doesn't bat an eye to captives being subjected to ColdBloodedTorture.
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entire movie takes place over the course of three days and two nights. While the first act covers events from the previous two days depicting how Hsiao-wu ends up in a shipping container in the first place, the second and third act is a lengthy battle on BigBad Xia's vessel.
* GeniusDitz: Hou-hu may be a borderline idiot and {{Manchild}} who cracks jokes at the most inappropriate times, but he's also smart enough to know how to stall for time, can act convincingly enought to fool Xia and his minions, and also a skilled fighter and killer when [[LetsGetDangerous he needs to get dangerous]].
* GratitousEnglish: Boss Bao during the meth deal, for some inexplicable reason. The following exchange is in English in all versions of the film, by the way.
--> '''Bao''': "Hey everybody. Are you here here to fight? Or are you... '''MAKE MONEY'''?"
* GunsAkimbo: Xia during the meth lab shootout.
* HeroicBloodshed: One of the more light-hearted examples, on par with ''Film/OnceAThief'', but still contains the usual elements of brotherhood, triads, morally-ambiguous heroes, GreyAndGrayMorality between characters, big shootout scenes with plenty of mooks getting killed, DualWielding pistols, etc.
* HoldingTheFloor: When Hou-hu, posing as the meth chemist ([[spoiler: since the ''real'' chemist called the Master was killed in the earlier car chase]]) is being held at gunpoint in the drug lab, he spends much of the time joking around,
* HowWeGotHere: The film opens with Hsiao-wu, waking up in a man-sized crate, and realizing a ticking TimeBomb is installed right next to him. He hurriedly tackles his way out of the crate, just as the bomb blows... and it turns out to be a dummy. Cue titles before a flashback to two days ago depicting how he got here.
* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler: Boss Bao, who's arrested at the end of the meth deal in the first act, but is later revealed to have been killed by dialogue]].
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: [[spoiler: In the final battle, after Xia's death, and hearing from Eva that reinforcements from the millitary are on their way to board the shipping vessel, Xia's remaining mercenaries - all 6 of them - quickly bails]].
* MacheteMayhem: Mooks who chooses to use melee weapons instead of firearms usually wields machetes. In the meth deal at the first act several machete-wielding mooks attacks Boss Bao and Hsiao-wu, and Hsiao-wu managed to retrieve one of their machetes to slice up plenty of enemies who got into his way.
* MexicanStandoff: Happens all over the movie.
** Hsiao-wu holding his gun on Madam Tong, while Madam Tong's bodyguards point guns on Hsiao-wu.
** Xia and Hsiao-wu, in the middle of a shootout against mooks, points guns at each other for a moment before deciding to put their differences aside and kill their way out.
** In the climax on the shipping container, the mercenaries against Hsiao-wu, who is negotiating with Xia.
* NobleDemon: [[spoiler: Xia's henchwoman, Teach, who in the middle of fighting Hsiao-wu, motions to him that his girlfriend Dawn just died. As Hsiao-wu stops fighting to mourn over Dawn, Teach stood aside and leave him alone for a few minutes]].
* PluckyComicRelief: Hou-hu, the partner of Wu who is a {{Manchild}} who cracks jokes every so often, breaks out into song numbers every now and then, and almost never take things seriously. But his appearance as TheDitz is merely a cover for his ObfuscatingStupidity - when push comes to shove, Hou-hu can - and ''will'' - kick a ton of ass.
* PrettyLittleHeadshots: Happens every now and then to mooks, bystanders, mercenaries, but also to [[spoiler: Xia's henchwoman Susan]].
* SkunkStripe: Four of them on Madam Tong, a minor drug leader Hsiao-wu confronts early in the film. One on the right side of her head, three on the left.
* SniperDuel: The final showdown between Eva and Xia's henchwoman, Susan. Both snipers took turn taking potshots at each other, until Eva remembers her advice from her training days: "A sniper gauges the distance using their senses instead of sight." - at which point she steps out of cover with her eyes closed, fires a shot at Susan's last position - [[spoiler: and nails Susan in the forehead]].
* SonicStunner: Eva activates one early in the movie to disrupt a deal between Boss Bao and the mercenaries during a meth deal. Unfortunately, Hsiao-wu is among the meth dealers as an undercover operative, and ends up suffering the effect of the ultra-high frequency waves with everyone else.
* StabTheScorpion: Happens during the MexicanStandoff between Xia and Hsiao-wu. While holding guns on each other, both of them pulls the trigger - killing mooks approaching each other from behind.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: In the middle of a huge gunfight early in the movie, Boss Bao, who is high on meth, lumbers to the back of his van while Hsiao-hu is busy fighting his way past mooks. A second later, Bao emerged carrying a crate containing maybe twenty grenades, all without their pins, [[TakingYouWithMe muttering that he's going to blow up himself with everyone after him]]. Hsiao-hu instead makes him spill the entire crate in the middle of the area, causing nearly two dozen explosions when the grenades gets scattered everywhere.
* WakingUpElsewhere: Hsiao-wu, after getting knocked out by Xia's minions, wakes up in a shipping container in Xia's freighter.
* WheresTheKaboom: In the final scene, during an intense MexicanStandoff between Xia and his mercenaries against Hsiao-wu and Hou-hu, Hsiao-wu whips out a detonator, threatening to trigger it. When Xia is unfazed, Hsiao-wu flicks the switch... and nothing happens. [[spoiler: For five seconds]].
--> '''Xia''': "Huh, I knew you were kidding. Do you need some explosives?"
--> ([[spoiler: Cue a '''MASSIVE''' explosion in the middle of the freighter, destroying much of the vessel's middle portion, killing plenty of mooks and leading to a ChainReactionDestruction where five more explosions of equally huge size start wrecking the freighter]])
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Dawn, who have blonde hair.

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