Author: Jim McLennan

Female Prisoner Sigma

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★★½
“Prisoner Cell-Block Meh”

sigmaAdding a somewhat supernatural twist to the women in prison genre, the heroine is Ryou Kanzaki (Hamada), sentenced to ten years for killing one of the men who tormented her late sister, Manami. She died in jail, under mysterious circumstances, in the feared “Special Housing Unit One”, a segregation block. The official verdict was suicide, but Ryou is having none of that, and requests to be sent to the same complex. She soon hears whispers that “An evil force is making people go crazy,” and also learns of the titular Sigma, a legendary inmate who acts as an avenging force for abused inmates in prisons around the country, taking revenge for them before vanishing and moving on to her next task. Ryou quickly finds out that the management in this establishment don’t believe she is there to “atone for her sins”, and have no interest in the truth about Manami coming out. Not just sleazy Warden Shibayama either, but his even creepier boss, who seems to be some kind of psychic vampire, powered by fear and hate. Ryou is going to have to put aside her scruples and cozy up to Shibayama, if she wants to find out what happened to Manami.

For the genre, it’s relatively tame, not that it should be mistaken for a Disney production. Still, with only one entirely gratuitous sex scene, though a fair amount of bondage/S&M, it’s at least trying to be more than thinly-disguised porn, and credit for making the effort – occasionally, with some success – to generate a spooky atmosphere. It seems to be trying for something along the lines of the Female Convict Scorpion series, creating a character whose exploits are the stuff of folklore. The problem here is, what we see is hardly legendary: when she eventually makes herself known, Sigma’s exploits are not exactly the stuff of which myths are made. Though, I grant, her ability to spit needles with unerring accuracy is quite impressive. Hamada’s performance is also too low-key to be memorable; she’s no Meiko Kaji, capable of commanding the viewer’s attention through sheer presence. Indeed, the same is true for the rest of the cast; I watched this less than 24 hours ago, and I’m struggling to remember any of their faces.

However, it is an effort to push the genre in something of a new direction, and Sasuga squeezes every yen’s worth out of his budget [even if this extends to a prison containing about a dozen inmates and a handful of guards]. The ending is clearly intended to open the door to an ongoing franchise, although there is no record anything ever came of it, which leaves things instead lacking in resolution. Largely forgettable, yet I’d probably rather have this than be actively repelled, like some in the field.

Dir: Sasuke Sasuga
Star: Shoko Hamada, Koichi Kitamura, Momo Izawa, Kyoumi, Moonsu

RWBY

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rwby★★★★
“Harriet Potter and the F-sized Weapon”

There are occasionally times where our book reviewer Werner’s “split scale” of grades for both artistic merit and action, would come in handy. This is one of those times. For the action scenes here are as glorious as you would expect from the man behind Dead Fantasy, virtuoso symphonies of exquisite hyper-violence, meted out and absorbed by characters and monsters without fear or bias, in ways limited only – and not very much, at that – by the creator’s imagination. Probably inevitably, this overshadows a fairly perfunctory plot, and characters whose characterization is largely defined by the shade they wear. On a split scale, this would merit five stars for both the quantity and quality of action, but likely three or three and a half for artistic merit.

It takes place in the world of Remnant, in a three-cornered struggle between humanity, the monstrous Creatures of Grimm, and the Faunus, who are part-animal, part-human, and largely perceived as second-class citizens, despite their own talents. There’s a substance called “Dust” which has magical powers, and an academy where young men and women train as Hunters and Huntresses, to do battle with the Grimm. The focus is on four teenage girls who are part of this year’s new intake, and who end up forming team RWBY [pronounced “Ruby”]: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long: the last is yellow-themed, you should be able to figure out the others. The main nemesis is Roman Torchwick, a terrorist who is working with a group fighting for Faunus’ rights, yet who had entirely his own agenda – as well as some high-powered minions and skills of his own.

Originally a web series, the first and second seasons have now been collected into feature-length collections, and while their episodic nature is occasionally apparent, they probably work better that way. The opening takes a little while to hit its stride, as it has to create the world, introduce the characters and establish the situations. The animation style takes some getting used to: it’s done in CGI, but trying to look like traditional cel animation; some of the resulting movement is almost too smooth, and I find the lack of noses on some of the characters, a bit unsettling. However, the script is well-written, sometimes sharp and witty, occupying a good place between self-awareness and parody. Even the characters that are largely superfluous – and some of the hunters in training could be so described – are less irritating than they might be.

It is, however, all about the action, and it’s clear that all of the other aspects – the plot, the participants and the world they inhabit – exist merely to facilitate the fight scenes, which is where all the work, imagination and energy become truly apparent.  The highlight, for me, in volume one, was a battle at a temple against a series of Grimm, while the second part climaxes with a running fight in, on and around, a train as it hurtles toward the capital city. You forget they are animated, while simultaneously wishing someone would throw $200 million at the studio behind it, Rooster Teeth, and let them make a live-action version. Sadly, creator Oum died of a severe allergic reaction in February this year, although it has been announced that Volume Three of the series will continue. Hopefully, the quality will not suffer, and will be a fitting monument to Oum’s sadly-missed talents.

Dir: Monty Oum
Star (voice): Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech, Barbara Dunkelman

Abeceda straha (The Alphabet of Fear)

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★★½
“Croat in the act”

abecedastrahaIt’s late 1943, during the Second World War: Yugoslavia is still occupied by Axis forces and their sympathizers, but with Italy now invaded, the end seems near. Local partisans find themselves infiltrated by collaborator spies; to find out who they are, they send Vera (Bojanic) into the house of the Bolner family, whose patriarch (Zappalorto) works for a bank and is believed to have a list of the spies. Her cover is basically playing dumb, for who would suspect illiterate servant girl Katica of being a partisan? However, it’s not as easy to play dumb as you might think, especially when one of the family’s daughters takes it upon herself to teach Katica how to read and write. Vera also has to handle unexpected visitors who recognize her, suspicious German officers and surprise searches, while communicating what she finds back to her handler. The list, however, remains elusive, until one night when an Allied bombing raid sends the family and their dinner-party guests to the cellar, perhaps giving Vera the chance to find what she has been seeking.

Set almost entirely inside the family’s house, the film is very good at generating a tense, paranoid atmosphere, where any knock at the door could signal the end of your life, during a time where the secret police had almost unlimited powers. The problem is, that”s just about all it does, and up until the final 10 minutes or so, there is an evenness of tone and approach which ends up being quite soporific. As should probably be expected from a movie produced during the Cold War, when Yugoslavia was ruled with an iron hand by Marshal Tito, it’s not exactly subtle on the characterization front, with the heroic Communist partisans being the good guys, while ze Germans and their (admittedly, very nasty)  local collaborators, the Ustaše, villainous to a T. If not exactly caricatures, there’s not much attempt made to make them human About the only character with depth is Bolner, whom you sense is operating out of a sense of expediency, to protect his family, rather than any deeply-held belief in National Socialist principles. It does also rely on Bond villain acts, in particular Vera being shown the list, when there is absolutely no need to do so.

Bojanic does a decent enough job of portraying the heroine, striving to maintain her persona and be as unobtrusive as possible, while taking any chance to ferret through her boss’s possessions in search of that list. Unfortunately, this is a over-simplistic story, definitely in need of further fleshing out with plot twists and turns, if it was to have a decent chance of resonating with a modern audience. While my interest just about survived, there were some dicey moments.

Dir: Fadil Hadžić
Star: Vesna Bojanic, Josip Zappalorto, Nada Kasapic, Tatjana Beljakova

The Miss in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

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mirn11It has been a good summer for undercover action heroines at the cinema. And, by “undercover”, I mean films where they are not necessarily the lure, but once you get in there, the makers deliver above and beyond what was expected. First, there was Mad Max: Fury Road, in which, despite the title, Max was more a supporting character to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa. And now, we get M-I:RN, which does something very similar; by some standards Ethan Hunt is not, apparently, the protagonist, in that it is not necessarily his actions which drive the film. It can be argued that position belongs equally to Rebecca Ferguson’s improbably-named MI5 operative, Ilsa Faust, who rescues Hunt from apparent certain death on more than one occasion, and whose mission to stop the mysterious “Syndicate” allows the nominal hero to come along for the ride.

While I’ll admit this site might just have a bit of a bias in regard to such things, I have to mention it isn’t just my prejudice which thinks so. A number of writers think Ferguson “stole” the movie from Tom Cruise, was “every bit the equal of Ethan Hunt”, or is straight up, “a badass goddess.” I can’t argue with any of that at all, and will add the significant bonus of there being basically zero romantic chemistry or sexual tension here. While the latest entry in the series does have much in common with classic 007 – globetrotting, gadgets and one-liners – the script, also written by director McQuarrie, simply isn’t interested in the hero bedding anyone, and the film is all the better for this, because it’s a hackneyed angle, which has absolutely been done to death. I have no clue (and, to be honest, don’t care) whether Cruise’s Scientology or alleged sexuality are in any way responsible for this chastity, or if it’s more to do with his character supposedly being happily married – at least, he was in the last film, since curiously, there is absolutely zero mention of Julia Hunt in this one, dead or alive.

mirn03We first meet Ilsa after Hunt has been lured in by the Syndicate, and drugged in a London record-shop. He wakes to find himself dangling in the Syndicate’s torture-chamber, and about to be interrogated by someone with the ominous nickname of “the Bone Doctor”. Faust is there too, as another operative, but helps Hunt to escape, taking out more than her share of bad guys, since the hero spends most of the scene hanging from the ceiling like a well-muscled piñata. She stays behind to maintain her cover, and a somewhat confused Hunt escapes. He next encounters Faust at the Vienna Opera House, where she is one of a number of assassins sent after the Austrian Chancellor, as part of the Syndicate’s plans to destabilize the world and… something something world domination. Look: they’re the bad guys, m’kay? Motivation is not the script’s strong suit: we eventually find out they’re after a large chunk of money, which is a bit of a surprise, considering they apparently aren’t short of a dollar or two for operations. Guess you can never have too much.

Turns out the head of the Syndicate sent Faust to kill the Chancellor to test her, suspecting her of involvement in the escape of Hunt. So, when she fails there too, she has to team up with Hunt, on a mission to track down an electronic ledger supposedly containing the names of all the Syndicate operatives. This is held in the depths of a Moroccan secure facility, which gives Hunt a chance to show off his skills – except, he isn’t able to get out in time, and has to be rescued by Ilsa yet again. If I were Hunt’s employer, I’d look at downgrading him from impossible missions, to somewhat tricky ones. Faust absconds with the file, giving it to her MI5 handler, only to be told her job is not over, and sends her back in again – though inexplicably, the head of the Syndicate appears to have a far laxer policy on employee failure than most evil overlords, and does not execute her on the spot for her multiple failures and apparent reckless disloyalty. Still, it seems fair to say that it is Faust’s choices, more than Hunt’s, that drive the plot: she acts, while he reacts. It wouldn’t take much in the way of a rewrite for this to become the long-awaited Modesty Blaise film, with Hunt converting into trusty sidekick, Willie Garvin.

In terms of action, there’s a particular nod to the 007 franchise in Faust’s signature move, which appears to echo Xenia Onatopp from Goldeneye, albeit seen through the lens of Lucha Underground. I’m not sure which is more impressive: that’s it’s Ferguson actually doing it (she says, “I thought it was never gonna happen, then I nailed it. I remember the excitement and the kick that it gave me. I asked them, ‘Can I do it more?’ It’s such a good move.”), or that she does it in a freakin’ ball-gown. On the other hand, Ilsa is smart enough to kick off her high-heels when they impede her. While Internet chatter had this as perhaps a sly poke at the heroine of Jurassic World, who appears to be nailed into her shoes even when being chased by velociraptors, it appears the scene in MI:GN was shot independently.

It’s also interesting to note the way the movie’s plot in some aspects mirrors that of Turandot, the opera being staged in Vienna. Per Wikipedia, the story “involves Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot still refuses to marry him.” [Or, for non-fans of classical music: it’s the one with that song by the fat guy with a beard] Hmm: might those riddles be, escaping from custody, surviving the theatre assault, and retrieving the ledger? Have to say, I’d go to the opera more often, if I was convinced it would resembled the film, rather than being more like watching sofas get re-arranged. Perhaps a more directly relevant inspiration came be seen in more recent cultural history, Ferguson saying, “Tom, Chris, and I had talked about bringing in this old starlet idea. If you look back at Veronica Lake and Ingrid Bergman, that style of the ’40s and then roughing it up with a 2015 sort of fuck off attitude.” It’s a combination of old-school grace and new-school ruthless efficiency which helps make for a winning product.

mirn07It’s always nice to see a new potential franchise pop up. Even if it has now been almost 50 years since Mission: Impossible first hit the TV screens, this is certainly a new direction for the franchise (though we acknowledge previous candidates, such as Maggie Q in the third film). Ferguson’s star is likely the biggest beneficiary of the film’s success, and I’m sure she’ll now be in demand; a career as an action heroine could be hers, should she want it  If Ilsa Faust shows up in the next entry – or, better yet, gets spun off into her own series – I’d have absolutely no complaints. Fingers crossed that’s a Mission which will prove Entirely Possible some day.

Dir: Christopher McQuarrie
Star: Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner

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Monster (2014)

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★★★½
“Bravery is just not understanding the peril of your situation.”

MonsteNot to be confused with the Charlize Theron movie, this Korean film is truly an odd beast: unlike some, it’s difficult to imagine a Western remake. For the heroine here, Bok-Soon (Kim Go-eun) is what could politely be called “developmentally challenged.” She can just about function, running a vegetable stand, but is largely dependent on her smarter younger sister to keep Bok-Soon out of trouble caused by her quick temper. Tragedy strikes when the pair cross paths with a vicious serial killer, Tae-So (Lee), who uses his pottery kiln to destroy the bodies of his victims. This results from a chain of events which involves a blackmail plot using a mobile phone; Tae-So’s brother (Kim), who tries to turn Tae-So’s psychotic tendencies to his own ends; and Na-Ri (Ahn), a young girl who knows the location of the crucial phone. Tae-So kills Bok-Soon’s sister, leaving her to fend for Na-Ri, while also grabbing a knife and setting out to take revenge on Tae-So. But how can someone like her, who is no match for the killer, physically or intellectually, possibly hope to prevail or even survive the encounter?

My first guess was that Tae-So’s brother was going to play a part; perhaps, realizing the creature he had unleashed could not be reined in or controlled. That absolutely nothing along those lines happens, gives you an idea both of the film’s main strength and its most obvious weakness. It’s far from predictable, yet some of the changes in direction and approach end up being more disconcerting than surprising. At times, it feels like the director couldn’t decide whether to make the film about Tae-So, his brother, or Bok-Soon, and the division of attention feels like it consequently sells all three of them short. If a film can’t commit to a single character, why should the audience? On the other hand, Hwang has a good eye for visuals, and the contrast between the villain and heroine is one of the most striking in recent history. There’s no denying the final encounter between them, in a restaurant already strewn with broken bodies, is a hardcore brawl of ferocious intensity.

Generally, I’m a big fan of intelligent characters, yet Bok-Soon is such a total contrast, it’s a refreshing change: instead of being smart, she has incredible loyalty, indefatigable perseverance to her cause, and absolutely no semblance of fear. Though is it still being brave when you genuinely don’t appreciate the severity of the danger into which you are deliberately placing yourself? That’s the question here, and part of which makes this one both appealing and incomplete. It’s a curious mix of genres, styles and approaches, perhaps making more sense to a Korean eye, But, as Kay Cox wrote, “I love the courage and freedom that comes with being a crazy old lady… no holds, no barriers, no fear.” Apart from the “old” part, that’s true for Bok-Soon: just as with the film, her weakness is also her strength, and makes for a heroine unlike any other I’ve seen.

Dir: Hwang In-ho
Star: Kim Go-eun, Lee Min-ki, Kim Roi-ha, Ahn Seo-Hyun

Miss Nobody

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★★★
“Climbing the corporate ladder can be murder.”

missnobodySarah Jane (Bibb) has been working for years as a unassuming secretary in a pharmaceutical company, and egged on by colleague and best friend Charmaine (Pyle), eventually gets up the courage to apply for an executive position. With some embellishment of her resume, she gets the post, only to have it yanked from under her when a new hotshot arrives. The hotshot makes a pass at her, leading to his accidental death; Sarah Jane has her position restored as a result of this untimely demise, and discovers her late rival had the plans for a wonder-drug with the potential to reverse Alzheimer’s. However, she soon realizes that further deaths will be necessary, both to keep her secret, and also continue her rise up the chain of command. Complicating matters, she starts dating one of the policemen (Goldberg) involved in the investigation of the slew of suspicious corporate deaths, by train, photocopier, gas explosion, etc.  Worse yet, someone clearly knows what Sarah Jane has been up to, and starts trying to blackmail her.

The film could have gone a number of different ways in terms of its approach, such as black comedy – Heathers would be the best example of that approach. However, Cox strenuously avoids the darker tone, opting to keep things frothy and light: there’s little or no doubt, for example, that Sarah Jane’s victims deserve some kind of retribution [although you can certainly argue whether their crimes reach a level where the death penalty is merited]. It does, of course, rely heavily on the stupidity of just about everyone beyond the heroine, the rest of the characters behaving in ways that would only happen in this kind of film. However, the cast are good enough to pull this off, with Bibb endearingly perky in the lead, and getting good support from Pyle (Cleaners), as well as Vivica A. Fox (Kill Bill) as another corporate rival, plus Barry Bostwick as the local Catholic priest, who has some difficulty coming to terms with the heinous crimes to which Sarah Jane confesses.

I was, however, unconvinced by the ease with which she slides from mouse-like secretary into serial-killing predator. Especially given – or, depending on your view of religious zealotry – even allowing for, her devout faith [she prays nightly before a shrine to St. George, a statue of whom played a formative role in her youth], it’s a slippery slope down which Sarah Jane less slides, than cheerfully sprints. The bubbly approach also seems awkwardly at odds with the subject matter, though the performances help deflect attention from this while the film is in motion. I’d likely have preferred a sharper edge to the corporate satire; there’s no shortage of potential targets there, yet this has about as much edge as a letter-opener, and that limits the impact, turning this into little more than a competently fluffy time-passer.

Dir: T. Abram Cox
Star: Leslie Bibb, Adam Goldberg, Missi Pyle, Kathy Baker

Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen

Video

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edithtmithThis month marks the 100th anniversary of the first British female police constable with the power of arrest, Edith Smith (right). The documentary below looks back at the history of women in the police force over the past hundred years, and how the role, attitudes (of both the public as well as their male colleagues) and even the uniform has changed during that time. Interesting to discover that the organized format started as the result of two effectively “vigilante” groups, who were formed to carry out volunteer patrols. One was mainly suffragettes, who were also fighting at the time for the right to work; the other, more genteel group of middle-class ladies, were the ones who obtained official sanction. At this time, the Great War was taking place, and just as World War II opened the doors to women in many areas, so did this conflict, with a large percentage of the male population being enlisted into the armed services.

Initially, women constables were tasked solely with handling children and other women – one of Smith’s main tasks was to address the prostitution problem, due to the large army presence near the town of Grantham where she was stationed. There were also restrictions which were not applied equally to men: they were forced to quit the force if they got married, it being deemed incompatible with the job. Some of these took a very long time to overcome; it wasn’t until 1994, for example, that policewomen in Northern Ireland were allowed to carry firearms for personal protection, something which had long been standard practice for men. But slowly, and not without some push-back, doors opened to other fields, from detective work through to the specialist units, and now certain areas have a majority female presence, such as the mounted police.  Now, there is no separation at all, something the film does acknowledge as not without its issues, in particular leading for a time to a horrendously primitive and uncaring approach to rape victims.

I think what I enjoyed most were the anecdotes told by the various women who had served, about their time in the police-force, and how they handled the situations in which they found themselves, which does a good job of bringing out the human side of the topic. Virtually every one of these officers comes over as resilient – likely a necessary attribute, I would imagine! – and sharp; the men interviewed largely praise the womens’ skills and abilities as equal to their own. It’s not a job I imagine is ever easy, and you’ll probably leave this film with a new-found respect for the women who take it on.

Final Girl

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★★½
“Hannah and her sister…”

horrorThe ‘final girl’ is a concept familiar to horror fans, being the last survivor who confronts the killer at the end, and typically defeats them (until the sequel, anyway!); mostly chaste, intelligent and resourceful, examples could include Ripley from Alien, Laurie Strode in Halloween, and one we’ve previously reviewed here, Erin in You’re Next, which somewhat subverts the concept. This movie, boldly claiming the trope for its title, goes further down that road, but I’m not sure it does so with as much assurance or wit. Set mostly in a deliberately-indeterminate time (judging by the fashions, the fifties seems a reasonable guess), it begins a decade or so earlier, with new orphan Veronica being quizzed by William (Bentley) as to whether she’d like to learn a “special” job. Fast forward 12 years, and she is about to go on a mission: taking care of four thoroughly unpleasant, upper-class young men, who have formed a “killer’s club,” that takes young, blonde women out to the woods, then hunts down and murders them. But in Veronica, they’re going to find themselves taking on a victim more than capable of handling herself.

It’s the annoying gaps here that manage to derail a potentially great idea. We never know who William is, or quite what happened over the following 12 years; in some ways, Veronica is remarkably ill-prepared for the events that unfold, so it doesn’t seem like she was training full-time. Nor can this have been the goal all along, given the killers are hardly any older than Veronica herself. And once she is finally taken into the forest, having successfully “flirty fished” for the gang of four, there is an overlong scene of them sitting around playing Truth or Dare, which sheds zero light on proceedings, and offers no insight into the characters on either side. It’s a good example of a film not being as smart as it thinks. However, good to see Breslin, whom we’ve wanted to adopt since Signs, shifting into more mature roles, and she does well, adding credibility to some of the more ludicrous plot elements e.g. a drug that causes you to hallucinate your worst fears. C’mon, that’s barely even trying.  It was also nice to see Cameron Bright as one of the killers; I think the last thing I saw was him playing the carrier in Ultraviolet opposite Milla Jovovich.

The forest scenes is lushly photographed, and once things finally kick off, the payback is decently delivered. It just takes too long to reach that point, and of all the ways the concept could have been used, Shields and the four writers apparently chose the least interesting path. You can tell it’s the director’s first feature, and while his background gives him a good handle on the visual aspects, the script is too weak for any amount of style to cover up the cracks.

Dir: Tyler Shields
Star: Abigail Breslin, Wes Bentley, Logan Huffman, Alexander Ludwig

Angel Terminators 2

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★★★★
“Angels of death”

angelterm2I have not seen Angel Terminators, so cannot comment on its merits or flaws. However, it does not appear that this impacted my thorough enjoyment of this slice of early 90’s Hong Kong goodness, and nor did the mangled subs which leave me a little vague on some details. The two heroines are Chitty (Lee) and Bullet (Oshima), who are… Cousins? Sisters? Not sure. Bullet has just got out of prison, having turned to delinquency after blaming her policeman father for the death of her mother. He and his partner (Hu) – who adds to the confusion because everyone calls her Big Auntie – try to achieve a reconciliation, but Bullet is unimpressed. She goes to her former gang boss for money, having taken the fall and gone to jail for him, but he just wants Chitty to become a hostess. The fight than ensues, kicks off a chain of events which leads to Bullet stealing some jewels belonging to the boss, who unleashes the accurately-named Brother Mad (Wong).

Will there be mayhem? Yes. Will there by fisticuffs and much gunplay? Yes. Will there be people strung up from lamp-posts like some kind of novelty Chinese lanterns? I’m not saying: I’ll let the film retain some element of surprise. But for all its broad strokes of characterization, it manages to deliver a relatively-even tone, without any of the slapstick and comic interludes which sometimes plague other entries. Indeed, it does become progressively darker, with a kidnapping forcing action that then goes horribly wrong, setting up even further death and violence. This is all accompanied by high-quality action, right from the get-go, starting with Hu leading an assault on criminals holed up in a restaurant, before quickly bringing you a battle between Lee and the leaders of another training squads in a gym, then escalating from there through to a bloody finale.

It’s easy to become somewhat jaded, particularly when you’re watching films because of their genre, without applying any quality control. But then you find a movie like like this, which looks like just another generic action heroine flick, yet instead delivers everything you could want from low-budget action, easily making up for in energy what it may lack in polish. With Lee, Oshima and Hu, you have a hand of three aces, and the film is only a couple of Khans (Cynthia and Michelle, a.k.a. Michelle Yeoh) from having the best cast ever in a HK action heroine film. Unlike some (hello, Avenging Quartet), it lives up to that.

Dir: Lau Chan + Chin-Ku Lu
Star: Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Chi Yeung Wong, Sibelle Hu