To celebrate the 40th anniversary of their founding, the Special Duties Unit of the Hong Kong Police have released video footage of their training, described as "hellish." Known as the "Flying Tigers," the SDU was founded by the Royal Hong Kong Police in 1974 after a Philippine Airlines flight was hijacked and was forced to land at Kai Tak Airport, making the need to establish a tactical anti-terrorist squad evident.
Until 1997, the Flying Tigers were instructed by the British SAS and trained alongside US Navy SEALs as well. In the 1980s, the SDU also developed a marine counter-terrorism unit known by the equally menacing moniker the "Water Ghosts," but this was disbanded post-handover. Having never failed an operation, the Flying Tigers have earned a reputations as one of the most formidable tactical units in the world.
The Flying Tigers were most recently deployed to deal with an armed standoff in June this year at Kai Ching estate, when a mainland immigrant shot dead a neighbor and barricaded himself in his flat. The father of a local B-list model embroiled in a celebrity love triangle with director Oxide Pang and actress Angelica Lee, the man killed himself as SDU operatives scaled down the building and stormed his apartment.
The Flying Tigers are so cool, in fact, that that police in Luoyang, Henan, recently started copying their uniform for their own Shanzhai Duties Unit:
Hong Kong vs Luoyang
Law enforcement in Chengdu, Sichuan have also been aping the style of Hong Kong cop dramas to entice people to join their ranks:
And they're been doing pretty much the exact same in Taizhou, Zhejiang:
And even in this national campaign:
Hong Kong vs Mainland
After all this, it should hardly come as a surprise that Shenzhen most recently jumped on the bandwagon as well, turning the city's motorcycle cops into a carbon copy of those across the border:
Hong Kong vs Shenzhen
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?
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