Author: Jim McLennan

Cleaner

  By

★★
“DEI Hard.”

Director Campbell recently appeared here with the entertaining Dirty Angels, and I was hoping for more of the same here. Sadly, I came away disappointed. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, Daisy Ridley is not Eva Green. That’s OK. After all, only Eva Green is Eva Green. But it’s still an issue. A bigger problem though, is likely the unashamed way thus is a knockoff of a certain Bruce Willis movie, and Daisy Ridley is not Bruce Willis either. Here, she plays Joey Locke, a former soldier now working as a window-cleaner in a skyscraper owned by Evil Corporation Inc. They’re actually called something else, but I’ve already forgotten what, in the two hours since. 

She also has to care for an autistic brother, Michael (Tuck), who is alternately utterly useless and a wiz with computers, depending on what the script needs at that moment. She ends up having to take him to work, and – what are the odds? – it’s the very same evening a group of eco-terrorists under Marcus Blake (Owen) and his lunatic sidekick, Noah (Skylar). will storm the building. Their intention is to blow the lid off Evil, Inc’s dirty little secrets. In the nasty little corners of the Internet where Luigi Mangione is a hero, they’re probably the good guys. It’s all fashionably murky, but another demerit: Skylar isn’t anywhere close to Alan Rickman. Owen might have worked, but for reasons, he’s not the main bad guy.

The film is, at least, considerably shorter than its inspiration. Although it feels this was obtained by removing most of the stuff which made Die Hard such fun. Instead, Joey is left dangling outside the building for too long, exchanging vaguely sisterly dialogue with the police inspector on the ground. It’s painfully notable that the competent people in this film are, almost without exception, wonen. In the middle act especially, it feels very much like the script was not so much written (by three human beings, apparently), as constructed by a Democratic focus group, circa September 2024. Occupy Wall Street! Climate change! Disability representation! Vote Kamala! Sorry, dunno how that slipped in. By the time we get to Joey actually kicking terrorist butt, I was largely checked out. 

There are some positives. The relationship between Joey and Michael is sweet, and kudos to the film for casting a genuinely autistic actor. Campbell also has enough of a track record in action, he could do this sort of thing in his sleep. Though, except for the opening scene, a flashback to twenty years earlier, there is rarely a sense Joey is genuinely dangling hundreds of feet off the ground [contrast Fall]. Ridley does enough with her part to suggest she may have a decent future in the action genre. She’ll need to pick better scripts, however, and the same goes for Campbell. Dirty Angels had its flaws, to be sure. It was still several notches more entertaining than this. 

Dir: Martin Campbell
Star: Daisy Ridley, Taz Skylar, Matthew Tuck, Clive Owen

13 Steps of Maki: The Young Aristocrats

  By

★★★½
“Light pink(y)”

Made by Toei, this is very much a straightforward “pinky violence” film in concept, telling the story of the Wildcats and, in particular, their leader Maki Hyuga. What separates this – in ways both good and bad – from the pack is that Maki is played by Sue Shiomi, best known for her roles in the Sister Streetfighter series of films. That means the action in this is considerably improved on the typical pinky violence movie, with Shiomi capable of holding her own, even when fighting many opponents. In particular, her skills with a pair of nunchaku is a sight to behold. The scenario here provides plenty of opportunities for her to show all her abilities off.

However, the downside is that Shiomi is simply too “good” to play a bad girl. When you put her beside the titans of the genre, like Meiko Kaji or Reiko Ike, Shiomi just does not have the necessary edge to succeed as the leader of an all-female gang of delinquents. Any group led by Shiomi would, I feel, be more likely to sell you cookies or help old ladies across the road, than beat you up and take your lunch money. It’s notable that, while this is certainly not short on the nudity required in the field, Shiomi remains firmly attached to her clothes. Others take care of this onerous duty, with the heroine instead providing the second half of the sex ‘n’ violence recipe.

The story sees Maki running foul of Yakuza chief Ryunosuke Daimon (Nawa) after rescuing a girl from his white slavery operation, and also annoying rich bitch Takako Ebihara (Ohara). Their revenge ends in Maki being framed and sent to prison, while the rest of her gang get hooked on smack by Daimon, and turned into compliant slaves. However, she gets help from an unexpected quarter, in the form of Daimon’s top bodyguard Tetsuya Eto (Nanjô), an honourable ex-boxer who grows increasingly unhappy with his boss’s sleazy business practices. Takako is also unimpressed when she discovers she’s going to be married off to Daimon, whether she wants to be or not. That comes after he has blown up Takako’s father with a car-bomb.

Things unfold as you’d expect. Maki wins the respect of her cell-mates, breaks out and, with Tetsuya are her back, storms the headquarters of Daimon’s yakuza clan, just as he is in the process of getting married to Takako. She’s not there to bring the gang boss a toaster or some nice crockery. If almost entirely predictable, the presence of Shiomi, and resulting upgrade in the quality of the fight sequences does make it feel relatively fresh in style – just not in content. The main factor which stops it reaching the top tier for the genre is the sense Shiomi is almost cos-playing as a bad girl, something you never doubted with the Queens of Pinky Violence. There’s good reason she only dabbled in this field.

Dir: Makoto Naitô
Star:Etsuko Shihomi, Misa Ohara, Tatsuya Nanjô, Hiroshi Nawa

Lady With a Sword

  By

★★★
“Can’t argue with that title.”

This was originally titled after its heroine, but since that obviously wouldn’t work in the West, it was changed to become about as generic a title as you could get. Behind this is a decent little flick, which is also worthy of note, because it may be the first Shaw Brothers action film to be directed by a woman. Pao-Shu Kao had been an actress with the studio since 1958, but this ended up being her sole movie as director for Shaw, as she started her own company, Park Films, with her husband. But this, her debut, is the highest-rated on the IMDb of the eleven features she helmed, at a respectable 6.8.

The heroine is Feng Fei Fei (Ho), who gets distressing news when her nephew, Hu Tou (Meng) shows up. He narrowly escaped with his young life after he and his mother, Fei Fei’s sister, were set upon by brigands, with Mom being killed. Fei Fei isn’t having that, so immediately sets out to take revenge on those responsible. She tracks down the first one, but this is where things get awkward. Because it turns out he’s Chin Lien Pai (Nam), the scion of a family friend, and worse, is the person to whom Fei Fei has been betrothed since they were young. While it’s a bit vague on the details, I guess vengeance would bring dishonour to her relations. Or, at least, make subsequent family get-togethers more than a little uncomfortable.

The first half-hour of this is really good, likely peaking with a hellacious fight at a brothel, where Fei Fei takes on what appears to be the entire population of China. It’s also notable, because next door, Hu Tou is also fighting, and it’s quite impressive too. East Asian films, be they Chinese, Taiwanese or from Hong Kong tend to use kids as comic relief, and the results tend to be grating and irritating. Not so here, with Hu Tou taken seriously, and allowed to take part in battles that work because he uses quickness and agility, not strength. But it is mostly Ho’s film and she gets a slew of solid fights, including against her fiancé’s mother, defending her son.

Unfortunately, after the brothel brawl, the film does tend to become a bit chatty and, worse, spends too much time on Chin and the other bad guys. It may be an attempt by Kao to deepen the portrayal of the villains beyond the shallow. However, guess what? I don’t care. The original attack firmly cements them as murderous scum-bags who deserve to die, and nothing is going to change my mind on this, thank you very much. The only interesting section sees Chin’s parents sharply differ in reaction to their son’s crimes: Dad thinks it brings shame on the family, Mum (as noted above), not so much. Fortunately, the ending gets back to the fighting, though it’s disappointing how Fei Fei needs help. Entertaining enough, yet after how if began, it seems a lost opportunity. 

Dir: Pao-Shu Kao
Star: Lily Ho, Seok-hoon Nam, Hsieh Wang, Yuen-Man Meng
a.k.a. Feng Fei Fei

Snow White and the Seven Samurai

  By

★★½
“That whirring sound? Akira Kurosawa, spinning in his grave.”

I added an extra half-star here out of how much I was entertained by this. Although this was more a result of us yelling things at the screen than any intrinsic merits. The idea is kinda cool, but if you can’t think of ways this should have been improved  you are simply not trying. Anya Voight (Dorn) is known as ‘Snow White’, because her father, Joseph (Eric Roberts),  is a coke dealer. He’s killed by a mysterious assassin, and when his will is read, her jealous stepmom, Quinn (Vitori), is highly annoyed to discover Anya will be the one inheriting the business, and has plans to go legitimate. 

She sends her mysterious assassin (Jackson) to kill her stepdaughter, but he is driven off by Luna (Tellone), the leader of a sect of onna-musha, female samurai. Once numerous, they got into an ill-advised was with organized crime, and are now only seven in number, each a specialist in a different weapon. They agree to teach Anya, so she can take revenge on Quinn for killing Joseph. Cue the training montage! There is also a subplot where Quinn is trying to eliminate the three other bosses with which her late husband had partnered. However, this is functionally useless, and one of the avenues for improvement would have been eliminating this thread entirely. Spend the time instead, giving more than two of the samurai adequate character depth, for example. 

For if this had gone the way of The Asylum’s Mercenaries, it would also have helped. Cast seven women who know one end of a katana from the other, instead of… maybe one and a half? Give us something like Lady Bloodfight. Instead, while there’s no shortage of action – the final assault on Anya’s former home takes up much of the final third – very little of it makes an impact, save an unexpected twist regarding Joseph’s death. Vitori is fun to watch, really getting her teeth into the “evil stepmother” role. Hardly anyone else makes a significant impression. This is why we were forced to make our own entertainment, e.g. yelling “How not to be seen”, every time someone with a mask showed up. Which was frequently – largely to allow for recycling actors, I suspect.

Jackson, best known as an MMA fighter, obviously makes for a formidable opponent, though his role is almost wordless and doesn’t merit the above the title billing he receives on the cover. I’m fine with that: the problem is more that the film needs someone as a protagonist who can hold our attention, as well as a sword. Sadly, Dorn isn’t good enough in either category. Tellone might have made a slightly better lead actress, though that wouldn’t help problems in the script, such as the way Anya goes from fencing amateur to professional samurai, in only a few days. The best thing about this is the title, and disappointment thereafter is almost inevitable.

Dir: Michael Su
Star: Fiona Dorn, Gina Vitori, Sunny Tellone, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson

Hunting Day

  By

★★
“I am very confused.”

I like to think I am not an idiot. I can assemble words into a coherent order, perform fairly complex mental arithmetic with reasonable accuracy, and recently connected a printer to my wife’s computer on the first attempt. So, when I tell you I did not understand this film… I really did not understand this film. I’ve seen movies before, where I may be unclear on some points. But I could still provide a reasonably detailed synopsis. Here? I am utterly at sea, beyond the most basic level, to the point I’m wondering how the heck I will be able to reach my standard five hundred words. How many can I spend describing my bemusement?

I do have to admire the fact the film unfolds entirely without dialogue.  Not a single word. It’s the kind of brave artistic choice which deserves respect. However, I have to say, it likely hurts the film more than it helps, and ends up feeling like an artistic conceit. Going by the IMDb, co-writer/director Patrice has no other credits beyond being executive producer, on a film currently in post-production. Yet this kind of gimmick movie screams out for someone with experience and a firm grasp of cinematic language. Somebody with a proven capacity for telling a story with dialogue. You need to work up to this kind of thing, otherwise you will potentially be leaving both yourself and, more importantly, the viewer, adrift and confused.

The IMDb synopsis is: “Deep in a threatening forest, Sarah faces off with the brutal hunter who killed her sister. Its a cat and mouse fight for survival.” No argument there. It’s just the large amount of stuff going around the edges, from which my confusion stems. For example, not long after Sarah (Huet) arrives in the forest, she starts seeing a young girl in a sheep’s head mask. Is that supposed to be her sister? If so, does this indicate Sarah is barking mad? In turn, would that mean nothing else we see or hear is trustworthy? Not least at the end, things spiral off into a resolution which is not, followed by a post-credit moment that then throws everything into doubt.

It all simply left me with too many questions, though other elements were fine. This is nicely photographed, and Huet does as much as she can, without words to express herself. The same goes for Duez as her (dead?) sister, and Bardoul, in the role of the hunter. But another seeming misstep is Patrice’s decision to tell the story out of chronological order. I’m unclear what he was trying to achieve with this, but the net result was another element coming between the audience, and any emotional reaction to events as they unfold. I tried. I really did, to the point I watched this twice (at a 72-minute running time, it could have been worse). In the end though, I’m convinced of one thing: I’m not the problem here. 

Dir: Julien Patrice
Star: Clothilde Huet, Cloe Duez, Steve Bardoul

Baltimore

  By

★★★
“The art of terrorism.”

Going off the Wikipedia article about Rose Dugdale, I can’t help feeling this could have been more epic than it was. I mean, a former debutante who, “As an IRA member, took part in the theft of paintings worth IR£8 million, a bomb attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary station using a hijacked helicopter, and developed a rocket launcher” which used – I kid you not – packets of biscuits to absorb the recoil. There’s so much there, it feels a shame the movie focuses almost entirely on the art theft. This was carried out in 1974, raiding a stately home in rural Ireland (fun fact: the house was used as a location in Haywire), with the aim of swapping the paintings for the release of prisoners. 

That said, the film does a good job of weaving several strands together. Firstly, Rose’s upbringing, and her conversion from a wealthy upbringing to political firebrand, and subsequently terrorist for the Irish Republican cause. Then there’s the actual robbery itself, and finally, the aftermath as Rose (Poots) and her two accomplices (Vaughan-Lawlor and Brophy) hide out and try to make their demands. It is definitely a sympathetic portrayal, which quietly ignores her role in civilian deaths. For instance, Dugdale made the device for the 1992 Baltic Exchange bombing in London, which killed three. And incidentally, blew up the office where I worked, around the corner in Bevis Marks. This may explain why I feel less charitably inclined towards her than the story wants.

Poots’s performance is solid enough to overcome my kneejerk aversion, and Rose as a character is depicted as someone who’s worthy of respect. You definitely get the sense she was genuine about her commitment to ‘The Cause’, born of an honest rejection of her privileged life. In this rebellion against her upbringing, she feels somewhat like a more ideologically committed, English version of Patty Hearst. [Hearst was kidnapped the same year as Rose’s robbery, and ended up robbing banks with the Symbionese Liberation Army] The film does skip over exactly how she went from activist, to hijacking a helicopter in order to drop milk churns on police stations – an incident only referenced in passing on a radio broadcast. 

What this does, it does well though. There’s an escalating sense of tension and paranoia, with Rose eventually ending up on her own (her accomplices were never caught, according to a final caption), as the net closes in. She agonizes over whether to kill a local who might suspect her, and if she should tell her boyfriend (Meade) about her pregnancy. However, while it’s far superior to Poots’s terrible Black Christmas remake, after reading the Wikipedia page, I was left hungry for further details. This feels closer to an episode of a TV series about Dugdale, rather than a fully rounded depiction of her life. I think I might end up going deeper into an apparently fascinating woman who, at her trial, pronounced herself “proudly and incorruptibly guilty”.

Dir: Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy
Star: Imogen Poots, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Lewis Brophy, Jack Meade
a.k.a. Rose’s War

Riley Parra: Better Angels

  By

★★
“Wings of desire.”

The idea here is considerably stronger than the execution. Police detective Riley Parra (Hassler) works the scummiest part of town, which is ruled by mysterious and possibly legendary figure Marchosias (Landler). However, while working a murder case, Riley discovers the area is, in fact, Ground Zero for an ongoing war between demons and angels. More startlingly yet, she’s directly involved, because she is the “champion” on the side of the angels. This revelation has the potential to destroy the shaky truce which has been in place between the two sides. Riley also has to deal with pesky journalist, Gail Finney (Sirtis, sporting an Australian accent for some reason), and attraction to new medical examiner Dr. Gillian Hunt (Vassey).

This is based on a series of books by Geonn Cannon, and is a mixed bag. I like the idea that the police department is entirely staffed by women, and nobody particularly cares. That they all appear to be lesbians? Hmm. Geonn is a male author, I should mention, which makes this… interesting. It’s all very much PG-rated, but really, I feel all the relationship stuff seriously gets in the way of the plot. Not least, because this ends with none of the major threads anywhere close to tied-up. Instead, it finishes with Riley just having solved a murder which doesn’t even take place until 65 minutes into the movie. Originally a webseries, it seems more a pilot than an actual film. Five years later, there’s no continuation, so do not expect resolution.

There are also silly little gaffes, such as Dr. Hunt picking up evidence at a murder scene with her bare hands. Or Riley getting a call and being texted the location of the same murder, then saying, “I’ll be there in 15 minutes” – without looking at her phone. Be where exactly? It’s all minor, but indicative of a rather sloppy approach to film-making. Shame, since the characters here are quite interesting, and the performances are decent. Everyone here seems like they could be a real person, even Marchosias and his outrageously French accent (that actor actually is French, so I’ll let it pass).

It feels fairly pro-religion, both in its central concept and sympathetic presentation of the priest, to whom Riley turns for advice. I’d have liked to have seen more action: I think the only person Riley shoots is her partner – not much of a spoiler, since it happens early on. Oddly, that barely leads to any disciplinary action or investigation, more evidence of the slapdash approach to detail. I do suspect some characters are not what they seem. I think either Riley’s boss, or Gail Finney, are actually agents for Marchosias. The latter would be interesting, being the kind of crusading, anti-police journalist you might expect to be the heroine in another story. Guess we’ll never know. Well, unless I read the novels and… Yeah, I probably wasn’t sufficiently into this to justify the effort there.

Dir: Christin Baker
Star: Marem Hassler, Liz Vassey, Karl E. Landler, Marina Sirtis

Kidnapping in the Grand Canyon

  By

★★★
“Not grand, but adequate.”

Despite my relentlessly commitment to sit through any film with an action heroine that strays across my radar, I’ll admit to suppressing an inward wince, when the film started and the ‘Lifetime Movies’ logo popped up. This origin was news to me. However, I was literally a captive viewer, since I was sitting on a plane to Mexico, so couldn’t exactly pop up and put on something else. At least it did mean I wasn’t going to end up uncomfortably trying to hide my screen from fellow passengers. This has occasionally happened previously, after an ill-considered choice of in-flight entertainment. Inevitably when I’m occupying the middle seat. Say what you like, Lifetime TVMs are safe. 

And to my surprise, in this case, reasonably entertaining. Admittedly, expectations were low. However, this kept my attention. Not that I could exactly walk out. But it keeps things simple, and is the better for it. To mark the twentieth anniversary of their friendship, pediatrician Brooke (Vitori) and photographer Chandra (Rosita) decide to do something special and hike the Grand Canyon. They bump into guide Nate (Boyd), who convinces them to go off trail and see hidden delights. As the title suggests, big mistake. For he is actually in need of a doctor who can tend to a nasty, infected leg wound suffered by extremely reluctant fiancée Tara (Bailey), and won’t take no for an answer, from any of the three women. 

Nothing new in the plotting here (there’s another Lifetime film with a suspiciously similar premise, Vanished in Yosemite),  but it does a decent job of avoiding character idiocy often needed in many of this sort of thing. Chandra is established early on as the risk-taker, so it makes sense when she immediately accepts Nate’s offer, over the objections of the much more cautious Brooke. This, too, is understandable as she lost her husband in a climbing accident two years previously. Yet despite the disparate personalities, the friendship between them is sold by the actresses’ performances. It gives a solid foundation, so that the occasionally rocky plotting doesn’t end up causing the whole endeavour to collapse. By the end, both have clearly changed and moved towards the middle, a nice acknowledgement of moderation being the best policy. Boyd does his part too, initially making Nate seem charming, until the inevitable – for anyone who has seen a man in a Lifetime movie, anyway – heel turn. 

I do suspect not all of it was actually filmed in the Grand Canyon. The stuff at the rim, certainly. But they’re shown entering the National Park, before arriving at the Sugar Loaf Lodge, which is actually in Sedona, a good hundred miles south. Some of the scenery looks more like Utah as well. However, you can’t go wrong with the Grand Canyon. It looks as majestic and imposing as ever, adding value to the production. Weirdly, it ends up being the second film I’ve seen this week, after Deep Fear, where a flare gun is wielded for offensive purposes. What are the odds?

Dir: Derek Pike
Star: Gina Vitori, Philip Boyd, Katrina Rosita, Ryann Bailey
A version of this review originally appeared on Film Blitz.

The ‘Angels of Vengeance’ trilogy

  By

The history of action heroines can’t be told without a chapter on China and Hong Kong. When we watched Michelle Yeoh kick butt in Yes, Madam, did we ever think she’d be an Oscar winner? She’s just the best-known product of a system which also gave us the likes of Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan and Maggie Q. The golden era for Hong Kong Girls With Guns films, was arguably the late eighties, but it’s never died away entirely. In the past few years, I’ve been finding a rich vein of recent Chinese GWG movies on YouTube. Streaming films took off there during COVID, with makers churning out a high-volume of films, in the action, horror and SF genre. Naturally, some fall under our remit.

Though researching them has been a bit problematic. Certain… “unofficial” channels, shall we say, will post the films with titles which are largely useless in terms of finding cast, crew, or even the film’s name. For instance, I discovered this franchise via a post titled, and I quote, “【FULL MOVIE】The beautiful police officers compete with criminal gangs in a battle of wits and courag”. In the comments, someone revealed it was called Angels of Vengeance 2. I thought I’d found part one on YT… But despite having the title Angels of Vengeance, none of the synopsis or cast info matched up. It turned out to be a mis-titled copy of Angel Warriors.

This issue actually feels like a throwback to the eighties, when the In the Line of Duty series, for example, had almost different titles in every country. Similarly, you’re sometimes dealing with subtitles that are less than optimal, and as we’ll see, audio is a sadly common problem too. However, after some further research, I eventually hit the mother lode, finding all three movies with English subs on Youku’s YouTube channel. The Chinese title of the franchise is 辣警狂花, which according to Google translates as “Hot policeman crazy flower.” I guess Angels of Vengeance will do under the circumstances.

Information on the franchise, director or actresses involved is hard to come by. In fact, at the time of writing in late 2024, this would appear to be the first English-language coverage the trilogy will have ever received. I love that: discovering obscurities is, to me, one of the joys of the site, especially when they end up being generally more entertaining than many a better-known production. But to quote the lyrics to the song which close out the third installment.

The resounding song is the sword of justice
Police badges shine with firm faith
Fear no flying bullets, guns in my hands, shield on my shoulder
I’m fearless to any dangers.
We undertake missions, we maintain the faith
Proceeding with firm steps, we keep going
We’re thunderbolts, charging forward
We safeguard the peace by fighting crime.

Can’t say more than that, really. Here are reviews of each film in the series, and a YouTube playlist of the trilogy.

Angels of Vengeance: Blood Trails

★★★½

This introduces us to the main protagonist, Tang Shi-Yu (Yan), a member of a Chinese SWAT team. She is recruited to infiltrate the drug-running gang belonging to Zhao Wen-jiu (Bai), doing so by rescuing Jiu’s younger sister, Ya-Ya (Mu), who is oblivious to her sibling’s criminal activities, from an attack in a nightclub. Tang’s undercover identity is someone in debt to loan sharks, and Jiu offers to take care of this, if she comes to work for him. After proving her loyalty, and also rescuing Jiu from an assassination attempt, she’s successfully embedded in the organization. But things are complicated, due to the reason behind the hit. Jiu killed someone close to his rival, Chen Jia-hua (Zheng), and Chen is out for revenge.

The obvious target for that is Ya-Ya, who is kidnapped, luring Jiu into a confrontation. Eventually, an uneasy peace between producer and distributoris brokered, setting the scene for a major drug deal going down at the docks. Tang informs her colleagues, and plans are put in place for a raid which will sweep up both sets of traffickers. This does a fair amount right, in particular the lead performances of Yan and Bai, which are thoughtful and well-considered. Both come over as smart individuals, and there is a complexity to the gangster which is a little surprising. Indeed, you could argue that, with his relationship to Ya-Ya, and their history, Wen-Jiu is given depth which is largely missing from Shi-yu. She is almost entirely defined by her career.

Tang does an excellent job of maintaining her undercover status, even when drenched in gasoline and threatened with immolation, and takes care of business on the action front when necessary too. I’d like to have seen more from the female members of her support team; outside of a little at the beginning, and a raid on Jiu’s offices, they don’t particularly get to show off their skills much. The ending feels a little underwhelming too, though that may partly be a result of the severely muffled audio during almost the entire sequence [It’s something you sadly need to live with on a lot of Chinese YouTube channels, even the legitimate ones like Youku]

I appreciate the practical effects: especially during the rescue attempt on Ya-Ya, there are real explosions rather than CGI.  It feel like there was good effort put into the script as well, which always keeps moving forward, and Chen’s presence adds an extra twist or two. There’s a great scene when the two gangsters have a meeting in a restaurant; the intensity and tension here is off the charts, and you can sense Tang’s nervousness as she can do nothing except standby and watch. This feels like the kind of film which could easily be remade for a Western audience, and I’d be happy to watch it again. A pretty solid and promising start, delivering a better story and performances than I expected.

Dir: Yuan Shuo
Star: Jessie Yan Jia-ying, Bai Yun-Feng, Mu Lan, Zheng He-Cheng

Angels of Vengeance 2: Top Fugitive 

★★★

This is based around “P2P lending” which was a major thing in China during the mid-2010’s, before the government cracked down on the various dubious pyramid schemes operating under it. A significant number of people lost a lot of money, but going by this relatively contemporary film, it’s still happening, and still problematic. In this case, young women are lured into running up large debts, and when they’re unable to pay, are abducted and sold into sex slavery, to cover the amount owed. I have some questions about exactly how this would operate, but I’m just going to presume the basic scenario makes sense in context for the local audience.

It’s a bit more of an ensemble piece here, with Tang’s SWAT group in Hanjiang City becoming involved after being called in to resolve a hostage situation at a petrol station. Turns out, the two women were victims in the scheme, but as the investigation proceeds, the criminals involved are covering their traces in no uncertain i.e. murderous fashion. Things become rather personal, since SWAT member Hao Miaomiao (Zhao) has lent money to her cousin, Zhang Le-Le (@@@), supposed for education purposes. Turns out Lele’s boyfriend is part of the gang, but when it comes time to kidnap the victim, an administrative mix-up leads to Miaomaio being snatched off the street, rather than Le-Le.

This pushes Shi-Yu’s investigation into overdrive, because they need to find their colleague before she gets shipped permanently out of the country. After Miaomiao is able to get her hands on a phone, she contacts Shi-Yu and is able to send her location. This allows the SWAT team to tool up, and head to the rescue of their colleague. To be honest, the resulting battle represents a clear majority of the action in this installment. Up until that point, there’s a good urban chase sequence, as the team tries to stop a witness from being offed, but this is probably more of a thriller than an action movie. Although it’s still interesting, because of the cultural differences, there are points where it teeters on the edge of TVM territory.

As noted, there  is a better sense of team here, and you get a feeling for the camaraderie between the various members. Witness the affectionate hazing at the end, when Miaomiao tries to skimp on the “thank you” meal for her rescuers. It’s novel to see SWAT people like Ting actively involved in a criminal investigation. This is presumably how things work in China, rather than the sharp demarcation of responsibility with detectives they have in the West. It could have use additional intensity, for example, a greater sense of threat to the victims, as it’s rather too vague on the specifics to present any real peril. The lack of a well-defined antagonist also keeps this one below the bar set by the first installment. It remains a pleasant enough way to pass 85 minutes.

Dir: Yuan Shuo
Star: Jessie Yan Jia-ying, Zhao Jing, Zhang Zi-Yue, Li Ran

Angels of Vengeance 3: Shadow Repose

★★★½

This gets off to an excellent start, depicting the kidnapping and subsequent ransom attempt of Ni-ni, the daughter of industrialist Yang Shi-ke (Bin). He’s getting instructions from the kidnapper, Li Zi-Xiong (Zhou), by phone in order to shake the tail on him, before the drop. As well as following Yang, Tang and her colleagues try to locate the victim, but neither side of this goes perfectly: while they don’t lose the ransom, there’s a trap which leaves Miaomiao badly injured in hospital, and the team with egg on their face. However, SWAT member An Qi (Zhang) suspects there’s more going on than meets the eye, with elements of Yang’s behaviour seeming suspicious.

As seems common throughout the series, we get more time than I expected spent on the villains. In this case, one of them is killed in the first pick-up attempt, which causes his friend to want to kill Ni-Ni. When Li refuses to allow that, the friend swears vengeance against the cops he considers responsible. No prizes for guessing who that is. This adds an additional wrinkle to what might otherwise be a fairly straightforward (though effective enough) kidnapping plot. Between that and Yang’s murky actions, the story is pretty interesting. We’re kept uncertain whether what Yang is doing, is simply to get Ni-ni back safely. Especially after we learn that Li has a long track record of kidnaps – and that the victims there have not come back alive. 

In effect, we have tension between Yang, who is prepared to do anything to recover his daughter, and the authorities, whose main interest seems to be in arresting the criminals, with the hostage’s health falling under the “optional” category. To what extent this reflects the reality of Chinese policy, I can’t say. It makes for an interesting point of consideration. The action has its moments too: there’s a particularly good brawl in a hotel kitchen. The finale is, at least initially, more stealth-oriented than the second part. The team capture one of the kidnappers during another attempt to collect the ransom, and successfully turn him, reminding him of the death penalty he could face – China does not mess about with punishing criminals!

He then returns to the lair, carrying the ransom, and with Tang, An and third member of the team,Yang Fan (Hong Shuang), hidden in the bag. They’re just able to free Ni-Ni before the deception is discovered, leading to an enjoysble and hard-hitting battle against Li and his henchmen (albeit with an ending which merits an “I’m so sure…” comment from this viewer!). Annoyingly, this film suffers from even worse audio problems than the first two entries, in the version provided by Youku. The sound completely vanishes at points, and when it goes, it takes the subtitles with it. The film is strong enough to survive the issue with most of the entertainment value intact. I can’t help thinking, if there had been a better presentation, this one might well have merited our Seal of Approval. Hopefully, there will be more entries to come.

Dir: Yuan Shuo, Wang Ke
Star: Jessie Yan Jia-ying, Zhou Yan, Zhang Lin, Xue Bin

Women Rescuers of WWII, by Elise Baker

  By

Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆

With the somewhat accurate and rather clunky sub-title of “True stories of the unsung women heroes who rescued refugees and Allied servicemen in WWII”, this is a book whose idea I liked rather more than the execution. The core is six chapters, each devoted to a woman or pair of women, who operated before and around World War II, mostly helping refugees to escape the Nazi regime as it swept across Europe. Every chapter has the same structure. Each begins with ‘The Threshold’, describing how they came to take on that role; then ‘The Move’, covering their heroic activities; and finally, ‘The Close’, detailing what happened to them afterward.

These stories are all worth telling, though perhaps not to the same degree. A couple appear more like glorified bureaucrats, and while their roles in facilitating emigration of refugees were important, you don’t get much sense they were in genuine danger. Others, however, such as Irena Sendler, was clearly risking her own life in smuggling Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, being captured and brutally interrogated by the Gestapo. The same goes for Andrée de Jongh, who ran the Comet Line which allowed Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in occupied Europe, to make their way back to friendly territory. She ended up in Ravensbruck concentration camp: that’s “real” heroism, putting yourself at personal risk, and definitely deserves to be better known.

However, the desire to cram in too much here works against the book. Each chapter typically covers only 20-25 pages, and as a result, you get not much more depth about each woman, than you would find in a well-written Wikipedia article. These are more like an appetizer, and you’ll probably be left hungry to know more about the likes of de Jongh. Baker has an odd tendency to shift from factual descriptions to what reads like dramatic restagings of scenes, an awkward shift that she does not manage to pull off. Rather than letting the stories speak for themselves, she tends to belabour her point about sexism being responsible for suppressing these stories.

It’s somewhat questionable, since many male heroes of WW2 are arguably more unsung: de Jongh, for example, was awarded decorations by multiple countries, including the George Medal, Britain’s highest civilian honour. That’s not “unsung.” I’d rather Baker had used the pages she spends on making such points, to tell the reader more about the women’s stories.  I will admit, I did learn things here, and if you’re looking for a primer – a Cliff Notes on wartime heroism – this and the other books in the series are probably worth a look. But it feels like Baker is only skimming the surface, and the subjects would have been better served by a more in-depth recounting, rather than trying to cover so many different candidates. Sometimes, less is definitely more, and this would be a good example. 

Author: Elise Baker
Publisher: Intrepidas Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book Part of the Brave Women Who Changed the Course of WWII series.