★★
“Hong Kong. A paradise of adventures. And a centre of scum…”
That’s the voice-over with which this starts, segueing into a bit of nude interpretive dance – well, semi-nude, the guy keeps his Y-fronts on, for which I am grateful – that has absolutely no relation to the rest of the film. At its core, this is a battle of triad versus triad: one overseen by Lau, the other by Fung. The former is assassinated, and his daughter, Angel (Yeung) takes over – she’s also keen to track down the perpetrators, with the most obvious beneficiary being Fung. But not so sure is Fung’s right-hand man, Jimmy Lee (Lee), who was there for the killing, and helps Angel’s investigation.
She also has her own team of henchwomen. Their numbers are doubled after a training session on the beach – complete with swimming caps, which makes the whole thing impossible to take seriously – intercut with random dirt-bike footage. Their practice (though quite what this is practice for, remains unclear) is interrupted by the five lady venoms, a girl gang who all have tattoos of birds on their backs. This has a bit of a mixed impact: an eagle is one thing, but an owl suggests more you’re a hardcore Harry Potter fan than a lethal lady. Anyway, after Angel takes on their leader in a beach brawl, the gang agree to join forces – though I would presume, the lady venoms draw the line at having to wear those swimming caps.
It’s all extremely fragmented, makes little sense and generates little interest. There are some cheap laughs to be had, such as the trip by Angel and her team to rescue a couple of women from a brothel. I mean, it’s called the Virgins’ Hell whorehouse, what exactly did you think was going on there? Or there’s the (entirely unauthorized, I strongly suspect) cover of Earth, Wind and Fire’s Boogie Wonderland which shows up for no apparent reason, with other music also stolen from better movies. But generally, this is the kind of film where most of the amusement value to be found has to be provided by the viewer, and it’s quite a lot of work.
There’s some slight interest in Angel being a gangster of honour e.g. a main bone of contention with the Fungs is their willingness to go into the burgeoning drug trade. But nicking plot elements from The Godfather does not make you a good film. Indeed, in this case, it’s likely more of an unwanted diversion from what you want to see, which is Angel and her crew kicking ass. The same goes for the “long-lost siblings” subplot, which comes out of nowhere near the end. Yeung carved herself a niche in the fairly esoteric “female group kung-fu” sub-genre of production during the first half of the eighties (this one dates from 1984), most notably Golden Queen’s Commando and Pink Force Commando. Those were, at least, mad enough to be entertaining. This? Not so much.
Dir: Cheung Chi Chiu
Star: Elsa Yeung, Eagle Lee, Ma Sha, Kong Do
a.k.a. 5 Lady Venoms a.k.a. Virago