The Black Morning Glory, with Michele Reis (Lee Ka-yan), Lau Sik-ming, Waise Lee Chi-hung, and Lester Chan Kit-man. Directed by Casey Chan Lai-ying. On Newport circuit. End of the Road, with Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Ng Mang-tat, Jimmy Lin Chi-ying, Rosamund Kwan Chi-lam, Tuo Tsung-hwa, and Ray Lui Leung-wai. Directed by Chu Yen-ping. On Regal circuit. AUDIENCES will shudder - not in fear, but over the complete lack of logic that grips The Black Morning Glory from first murder to final explosion. A modicum of visual style is no substitute for an almost total lack of substance in a series of intrigues that come across as even more phoney than the counterfeit dollars that lie at the story's centre. Michele (Michele Reis) is a beautiful fashion model on assignment in Japan who unwittingly stumbles upon a video game cartridge belonging to her handsome, good-for-nothing boyfriend, Ken (Lester Chan). This video game should have included a health warning, for its possession proves to have a fatal impact on the model. The ''game'' contains computer graphics for US greenbacks, and when Michele, in a pique of anger, hides the cartridge from her boyfriend, he hires a syndicate to kill the beauty and regain the treasure. Michele is murdered within the first 10 minutes. But the more I thought about it - and there are plenty of slow spots which afford one time to think - the more it became clear that the murder was not only unnecessary but also demonstrated a sloppiness that would not have been tolerated in a top-notch crime organisation. For the killer disposed of the lady before finding out how she had disposed of the hot property. Only by chance is it discovered that Michele mailed the cartridge to a childhood friend in Hong Kong, Michael (Lau Sik-ming), whom she had not seen since she was five. Even more incredibly, Michele's assassin is identical in appearance to the woman she has just bumped off. Lin (also played by Michele Reis) discerns too late that her victim is none other than a toddler pal from whom she was separated two decades earlier. We are informed through one of the many flashbacks that the biologically-unrelated twins lost contact when Lin's mother was brutally gang-raped and murdered, and the infant Lin abducted by the murderers - an unusual crime for Hong Kong in the 1970s. To say the scenario is far-fetched is an understatement even in the world of far-fetched Cantonese screenplays. But while some movies can make a virtue of the absurd, The Black Morning Glory's dynamics are too weak to divert anybody's attention from plotholes that are the cinematic equivalent of black holes in outer space. The movie doesn't contain one moment that rings true. This includes the entire masquerade that ensues when Lin assumes Michele's identity and returns to her home village in search of Michael and the cartridge. Both Michael and Lin seem the products of arrested emotional development, having too perfect a recall of events that happened in their pre-teen years. But the movie's lapses go deeper than this. None of the film's major points - Michele's murder; her ''mature'' relationship with Ken; Lin's abduction; Michael's emotional ties to both Lin and Michele - stands up to even casual scrutiny. And there are other minor but more amusing questions. For instance, why does the cool, sophisticated, Emma Peel-like Lin choose to commit murder garbed in a Tina Turner wig and with glittery stars pasted to her face? Being conspicuous while engaged in crime might work in the cartoon-like context of Batman, but in The Black Morning Glory it's ridiculous. TAIWANESE scriptwriter Wu Nien-chen's scenario for End of the Road may follow a logical sequence of events, but director Chu Yen-ping's sensationalistic handling of the potentially powerfully matter only proves that logic isn't everything. A sequel to the 1990 wartime epic A Home Too Far, End of the Road continues the based-on-fact drama of a contingent of Nationalist Chinese soldiers stranded in the Thai-Burmese jungles after the communist take-over of mainland China. By the 1960s they are a ragged lot, battling Burmese communists, the Thai army and renegade Chinese drug warlords. Perhaps the wealth of characters and situations made it impossible for the film-makers to fit them into the brief feature-length running time. Some story strands get lost in the process - the movie's anti-hero, an army officer played by Tony Leung, is the main character during the first third, yet all but disappears during the middle section; Ray Lui's Golden Triangle opium kingpin becomes little more than a cameo. Instead, the movie concentrates on the relationship between Tse (Ng Mang-tat), a middle-aged bachelor soldier, and Ting, the teenage boy he ''adopts'' (teen idol Jimmy Lin). The movie continually stresses the father-son nature of the relationship, but one wonders. After all, Tse seems to have a Death in Venice - like devotion to the boy, showing much more interest in him than his ''mistress'', a mysterious war widow (Rosamund Kwan). Though living in close quarters in their hut, Tse fails to consummate therelationship with Kwan. On the other hand, there are numerous scenes showing casual physical contact between the two males, including a bathtub sequence. Draw your own conclusions. Whatever the movie's intentions, End of the Road comes across as a too obviously manipulative combat saga that sheds little light on the human drama enacted in the recesses of the Thai jungle.