Tag: hong kong

Wing Chun

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★★★½
“Half kick-ass fights, half zany bedroom farce”

wingchunWing Chun is the name both of the school of martial arts, and the woman whom legend has it was responsible for its creation – which, in itself, is pretty cool. Tradition says Yim Wing Chun was an 18th-century figure, to whom a warlord proposed (rather forcefully, one imagines) marriage: she developed the style and used it to beat him, thereby escaping wedlock. This movie is a very loose depiction of her life: Yim and her wily but unloved sister, Abacus Fong (Yuen) run a tofu shop in a town plagued by raids from local bandits. Yim rescues a beautiful woman, Charmy (Catherine Hung) from them, and Charmy’s allure brings crowds of customers – well, at least male ones – to the store. Yim’s former sweetheart, Leung Pok To (Yen) shows up, determined to woo her again, but mistakes Charmy for Yim. Meanwhile, bandit leader Flying Chimpanzee (Chu) has had enough of Yim humiliating his men, and kidnaps Charmy to lure the martial arts mistress into their fortress.

You’ve got Yeoh, the greatest kung-fu actress of all time, in my opinion. You’ve got Yen, who’s the greatest kung-fu actor of the modern era, in my opinion (Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan in his prime, might be slightly better). You’ve got veteran Cheng Pei Pei, who’d find fame five years later in Crouching Tiger, as Yim’s teacher. And you’ve got Yuen, the greatest kung-fu director – I’m not even going with “in my opinion” on that one. So, why isn’t this a solid gold, five-star classic? Simply because, while the fights are awesome, the stuff between the fights is nearer to awful, focusing far too heavily on slapstick of the British, “Whoops! Where are my trousers?” comedy school. Not, I should stress that I’m averse to that per se: it just isn’t what I want in my action movies. Here, people leap in and out of bedroom windows, fall over themselves at Fong’s “stinky tofu” breath, and repeatedly, somehow manage to mistake Yeoh for a man. None of this is the slightest bit interesting, and it’s even less amusing.

Indeed, it’s a tribute to how good the battles are, that I was prepared to endure comedic stylings apparently crafted by an unsophisticated eight-year-old, to get to the next confrontation. Take your pick of which is best. The one on the docks? The battle over a tray of tofu? The encounter in an inferno? We haven’t even mentioned Yim vs. Flying Chimpanzee, which is the duel so good, they had to do it twice [and I was impressed Yeoh retained her position at the heart of the movie, not stepping aside to make way for Yen]. Without exception, these are all imaginative, inventive, varied, fluidly shot and edited: practically a master-class on how fight sequences should be filmed. The trailer below – which wisely removes just about everything else apart from the martial arts – will give you some idea. It’s just a shame their grace and beauty isn’t in the service of anything more memorable than dumb humour.

Dir: Yuen Wo Ping
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, Kingdom Yuen, Norman Chu

Devil Hunters

  By

★★½
“When Sibelle Hu asks ‘Mind if I smoke?’ she may not mean what you think…”

devilhuntersBonus half-star for the final scene, which has the three leads leap out a window, as a giant explosion goes off behind them. Rather too giant, as a mistake in the amount of gunpowder used, apparently led to both Hu and Lee suffering third-degree burns. You can see it below: the part of the roman candle in the middle, is played by the former. :( Which may explain why the film abruptly ends there, over a montage of apparent newspaper clippings, and the heartfelt well-wishes of the director to his injured stars. Such sacrifice can only be admired.

Though, as with Michelle Yeoh’s accident on The Stunt Woman, you can’t help wishing it had been made in the service of a better movie. Particularly early on, this seems nothing more than a set of random action scenes spliced together, without rhyme, reason or a plot to connect them. Eventually, it turns out that there is virtually a queue of people, all with reasons for a grudge against gangster boss Hon San (Wong Wai), who appears to be the “devil” of the title. Among these are cop Inspector Tong (Hu); Hon San’s underling, Chiu Shing (Francis Ng); Chai Sun (Lui), who seeks vengeance for the death of his father; and finally, an enigmatic young woman Abby (Lee). By the time of the fiery finale, alliances are formed, the true villain revealed, and a great deal of butt kicked, but you’ll be hard-pushed to retain significant interest through the plethora of subplots as they unfold.

Perhaps the main problem is that, between getting these and the action in, there’s very little time for anything else, such as making us give a damn about any of the characters. Without exception, they appear to be out of the box of Hong Kong stock clichés: deceitful gangster, stoic cop, etc. and none of the plot twists will provoke much more than an “Eh.” Overall, you’re better off taking this as the “random action scenes spliced together” mentioned earlier, and having it on in the background while you do something more productive.

Dir: Chin-Ku Lu
Star: Sibelle Hu, Alex Man, Moon Lee, Raymond Lu
a.k.a. Megaforce 2, Red Force 3, Ultra Force 2

Dreaming the Reality

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★★★
“Taking the red pill”

Dreaming the RealityThere’s half a good movie here, albeit one which treads some rather familiar territory. It might seem hard to go wrong, with three of the most-renowned Hong Kong action actresses in one place, but as we saw with Avenging Quartet, quantity does not guarantee quality. The main issue is two separate plots, which appear to have strayed in from entirely different movies, and which don’t even cross paths for about an hour.

In one corner, we have Kat (Oshima) and Silver Fox (Lee), who have been raised by their foster father as assassins. But after one hit results in collateral damage to an unfortunately-timed school bus, Fox starts to have doubts about her career path. They’re dispatched to Thailand to recover a floppy disk containing damaging evidence [Older readers: it wasn’t even one of the little ones, but a full-on 5 1/4″ disk! Younger readers: look “floppy disk” up.]. Fox gets their target, but in the ensuing chase suffers a bout of cinematic amnesia. And that’s where the other plot kicks in. Lan (Hu) is an ex-HK cop who has been trying to keep her brother, Rocky (Lam), out of trouble, despite his ambitions to be a champion kick-boxer. This leads to all kinds of goofy and entirely uninteresting shenanigans, with Lan having to sub for Rocky in one fight, fend off an evil manager, etc.

It’s only after Fox stumbles into Lan’s bar, that things gel, and from then on, it’s an almost ceaseless barrage of gunfire and punches, with some surprising deaths, and all three heroines on top form, particularly Lee and Hu. This makes up for the opening hour, which largely alternates between the “tortured killer” cliché and excruciating comic mugging. The former is preferable, not just because the action is better-staged, but also because Lee and Oshima do get to deliver some interesting lines, which succeed in giving their characters a bit more depth than you’d imagine. When Fox asks Kat, “What would you do if I died?”, her answer is a straightforward yet poignant, “I’d die with you.” But this darkness jars badly with the slapstick elements, and Liu has no idea how to combine them into anything like a coherent whole.

Dir: Tony Liu
Star: Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Sibelle Hu, Ben Lam

Here’s the end fight, with Lee going up against Eddie Ko, who plays her foster father.

The Black Butterfly

  By

★★½
“Given she wears purple, wouldn’t a better title be The Mauve Moth?”

short0448Someone is robbing the rich, and using the proceeds to buy rice for the poor. Could it be the drunken beggar (Yeung) in charge of rice distribution, who is cagey about where his new-found wealth comes from? Or the local inn-owner and former martial arts master (Tien), whose efforts at fund-raising have been rudely rebuffed? Closer. It’s actually his daughter (Chiao), whom no-one knows has any skills at all, but has apparently learned them in secret, and goes out at night, stealing valuables in order to fund the charity operations of her beggar pal. Needless to say, their previous owners are less than happy with this, and are seeking the culprit, led by policeman Xi Lang (Yueh). Things are muddied further when a group of bandits, the engagingly-named Five Devil Rock gang (I think I just found my band name!), steal an imperial seal, forcing the Butterfly’s father out of retirement, and her to reveal herself to save him.

There’s really two halves to this film. The first is, for me, more interesting, though it’s rarely less than obvious Chiao is doubled for any acrobatic work: shot of her jumping, cut to stuntman flying through air, cut to Chiao bending her legs slightly on landing. The style is also defiantly old-school and Peking Opera based, which will come across as stagily artificial to modern eyes, and you do have to remember this was made 45 years ago. However, I did appreciate the long-duration takes, and even though the action quotient was lower, the characters, performances and plot were enough to keep me interested: it plays a little like Iron Monkey, one of my all-time favourite martial arts films, and the idea of a female Robin Hood certainly has enough potential.

Unfortunately, the second half, when the bandits show up and dominate things, is rather less succesful, falling back on a number of old clichés of kung-fu cinema, such as the battle between schools. Until the finale, the heroine is largely reduced to a supporting role, ministering to her poor father, for whom the stress has become too much. While she is more active in said climax, it had me rolling my eyes at its extreme example of the trope where the villains have the good guys outnumbered – literally here, a hundred to one – but attack in ones and twos rather than rushing en masse. Here, it’s even more ridiculous, because the good guy minions beg their leaders to go in first (inevitably, getting their asses kicked), so neither side appear interested in using all their forces. While spectacular enough, I suppose, the end result just doesn’t live up to the early potential.

Dir: Lo Wei
Star: Lisa Chiao Chiao, Yueh Hua, Tien Feng, Yeung Chi Hing

Magnificent Warriors

  By

★★★★
“Raiders of the East Ark.”

Ok, the above is a rabid simplification; there are no artifacts here at all, but there’s no doubt Michelle Yeoh’s adventurer owes more than a touch to the archaeologist we all know and love – not least in the bullwhip she wields in the opening sequence. While for nasty Nazis, read nasty Nips, with the Japanese who are occupying mainland China at the time of this film, so villainous they might as well be twirling wax moustaches and wearing top hats. They’re building a poison gas factory, and it’s up to Yeoh, agent 001 Yee and scoundrel Ng to stop them.

It does live up to the claim of “nonstop action” on the sleeve, certainly, and when Yeoh is in full flow, it’s a joy and absolute delight to see. For example, almost the first fight has her wielding a rope with a blade on the end, and it’s better action than many films have as a climax. There’s plenty of similar scenes, and more than enough moments make you go, “Whoa!”, in your best Keanu voice. Though for my tastes, and especially towards the end, there’s too much running/driving about, firing of weapons, explosions and stuff that doesn’t particularly showcase the skills of those involved. Supporting actress Cindy Lau comes over well as the feisty sidekick of the man they have to rescue.

This was the last action film in the first stage of Yeoh’s career; in 1988, she retired, and married D&B Films owner Dickson Poon, until her return to the screen in Supercop. This is perhaps the least well-known of her early trilogy of starring action roles, behind Yes, Madam! and Royal Warriors; in all honesty, it is probably the slightest, yet is still an impressively insane piece of work.

Dir: David Chung
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Derek Yee, Richard Ng, Lowell Lo

Sasori

  By

★★★
“The Story of Ricky meets Saviour of the Soul.”

While sharing the heroine’s name with the renowned Female Convict Scorpion series, it’s not clear how much of an official remake this is: it’s supposedly based on a manga series, which I don’t quite recall being the case with its predecessors (it was a while ago I saw the original, though – must get round to re-viewing it for the site at some point soon). The concept is not dissimilar, however: Sasori (Mizuno) is sent to prison, where she is brutalized, but eventually escapes, and seeks vengeance on those who were responsible for putting her inside to begin with. However, it’s really poor at providing motive or explanation: for example, after Sasori is left for dead, her body is dumped outside the prison, where a corpse-collector (HK veteran, Simon Yam) rescues and revives her, before training her in the ways of top-end martial arts and sending Sasori on her way. Why? Who knows. Similarly, the reason why our heroine is in prison at all, raises more questions than it answers.

It’s a movie of two halves: the first sees her struggling to survive in a prison, where the warden makes the inmates fight each other, in a muddy pit naturally, for his amusement; Sasori ends up battling the evil jail queen, Dieyou (Natsume), and that’s where the Story of Ricky comparisons come in, though without quite the same level of hypergore. But outside the prison, it’s a much more chilly and stylized production, taking place in a city where there’s almost no-one around, except the main characters: that’s where it reminded me of Saviour much more. The fights are a similarly odd mix of wire-fu with ground ‘n’ pound, that are not badly put together: Mizuno occasionally looks the part with a fair degree of conviction, but there’s just too much which doesn’t so much defy expectation, as simply gets none at all.

On the plus side, this isn’t anywhere near as sleazy as some of the entries, which are more “women in prison” than “action heroine”. Despite the mud wrestling, and some costumes that definitely lean towards the exploitative, this is definitely in the latter camp. It’s not particularly outstanding, yet is worth a look if you’re feeling in a forgiving mood.

Dir: Joe Ma
Star: Miki Mizuno, Dylan Kuo, Emme Wong, Nana Natsume
a.k.a. Female Convict Scorpion

Naked Soldier

  By

★★★★

Ten years after Maggie Q got her career as an action heroine kickstarted with Weapon, and twenty after Killer rampaged its way into cult status, Jennifer Tse takes over – bearing more than a passing resemblance to her predecessor, I think. I think it’s kinda cool how the series gets revisited every decade, regular as clockwork: maybe famed producer Wong Jing has a house payment to make or something? Admittedly, there’s not much more than a tangential connection between the entries; three different directors, three different stars, and not much overlap in terms of plot. However, they still share a common approach, fetishising the female form and the act of assassination, with no shortage of style, and are the longest-running (in terms of years) GWG series around.

The story of this third installment opens with a prologue from 15 years ago, when Interpol agent CK Long (Sammo Hung) intercepts a $35 million shipment of drugs. As punishment, its owners unleash Madam Rosa and her killers on him, as he enjoys a nice family Christmas in Florida: most of his relations are killed, Long barely escapes with his life as his house is blown up, but watches as his daugher is whisked away by Rosa, to be brainwashed and trained as one of her army of assassins. Back in the present, Rosa is now sending our her minions to kill the five leaders of a proposed international drugs cartel. Long is assigned to the cases, because of his familiarity with the way Rosa operates, and is startled, to say the least, when DNA testing shows one of the killers appears to be his long-lost daughter. Not as startled as he will be, when she turns up in his apartment, with murder in mind. Naturally, his investigating partner (On) meets Phoenix in her undercover role as a student, and falls in love with her, at a speed only ever seen in movies more concerned about action than relationships.

There’s a lot to enjoy here, not least the presence of Hung, who has always been an under-rated talent in my eyes. He’s pretty damn sprightly for a 60-year old: a step slower perhaps, but there are still moments to treasure here, such as the chopstick duel with his other daughter. He served another important purpose here: for my wife, his early presence legitimized watching a film called Naked Soldier, which I suspect might otherwise have led to some dripping sarcasm – even though she remembered and enjoyed Weapon, and as in its immediate predecessor, the actual nudity in this is confined to the title. There’s another veteran of HK cinema who shows up at the end. While I’ll avoid spoilers, it was someone whom we were equally delighted to see – even though he was single-handedly responsible for putting Chris off Chinese food for a year!

However, these are supporting roles and here, we’re more interested in how Tse and the other ladies acquit themselves. And there are a number on both sides, even if, early on, things do move relatively slowly into gear. Despite token male killer, Black Dragon, Madam Rosa still has her admirable fondness for female assassins, and we see them in action early on as Ivy, Selina (Beilke) and Phoenix carry out their missions in a Vegas hotel, boxing gym and at a funeral respectively. [Selina’s viciousness is quite belied by her final haircut, which appears to have come straight from a Flock of Seagulls fan convention!] One of their targets is an ass-kicking Thai gangsteress, who teams up with a gay Dutch guy against one of the assassins, in a nice handicap brawl at a boutique.

naked_soldier_ver2_xxlgIt’s mostly the end, when Long, his daughter and Phoenix head off to Madam Rosa’s island, that things really kick in, as it turns out that betrayal is a two-headed beast. There, we get an excellent series of battles: one-on-one, two-on-one, many-on-one, that mor than make up for the relatively relaxed pace over the first hour or so, and feel like a throwback (not least becauge of Hung’s presence). Corey Yuen does the action: his track record speaks for itself, with solid action heroine entries such as So Close and D.O.A. on his resume, and this would be another. There’s plenty of variety and invention on view, up to and including the climactic battle between Phoenix and her nemesis, on one of the lethal training apparatus in Rosa’s lair.

There are some negatives, not least Long’s daughter, who serves little or no purpose beyond unfunny comedy, and appears to be played by an actress significantly older than she needs to be. And certainly, aspects of this don’t make much sense. For instance, why did Rosa’s efforts at revenge take a sabbatical for 15 years, after having killed everyone but her intended target? Or why are proceedings supposedly set in 1995, when it obviously isn’t 1995, for example, the tech everyone uses? However, there’s nothing a genre fan won’t be able to overlook, and plenty they’ll be able to appreciate, making this a worthy entry in the series: I wouldn’t mind if they skipped the 10-year waiting period for the next entry. Failing that: roll on, 2022!

Dir: Marco Mak
Stars: Jennifer Tse, Sammo Hung, Andy On, Ankie Beilke

Raging Angels

  By

★★
“Because “Peeved CFOs” wouldn’t be as catchy a title.”

Despite the name, there isn’t much raging, especially in the first half, which is more about the struggle for ownership of a company. It starts with an attack on the current chairman and his wife Bin (Ng) while on a trip to the Phillippines, after which she takes over the company. That doesn’t last long, as Tammy (Cheung) has designs on its finances, aiming to asset-strip it for his own purposes and divest Bin of her shareholding. To this end, he frames her and Chin (Leung), her best friend who is the wife of the company’s accountant, for drug smuggling: Chin takes the rap and is sent to 10 years jail. It takes all Bin’s resources to get her out, and when he does, Tammy sends his henchmen to kill their mother [ok, its not clear whose mother]. Bin and Chin arrive just too late, but find the minions’ vehicle, full of weapons… Yep, finally, it’s raging time!

When it finally kicks in, it’s certainly good stuff, to the extent that you wonder why they basically didn’t bother for the first 75 minutes: the only notable action heroine sequence to that point sees Ng take on a predatory lesbian and her gang in prison. However, it loses half a star due to the action, for no apparent reason, being shot in a crappy strobey fashion, dropping frames here and there: I wondered whether it was just my dubious copy (which also had audio in two different languages simultaneously), but I’ve seen a couple of other reviews that mention it, so I’m thinking it was a deliberate stylistic choice, albeit one we could have well done without. Ng and Leung both still have the moves, though they are unable to dispatch Tammy by themselves and have to rely on male help; further debit there.

Not to be confused with the Sean Patrick Flannery pick – unlike Amazon did! – the film’s main mistake is taking a good cast, and failing to play to their strengths. Which would be kicking ass, in case you were wondering. The final reel shows the makers are aware of this, which simply begs the question, why wait so long? The performances aren’t bad, with both Leung and Ng are decent in their roles. However, it feels like having to eat an entire loaf of bread before getting a couple of slices of ham at the end. While you’re glad for the break, it doesn’t repay the effort.

Dir: Rickie Lau
Star: Carrie Ng, Jade Leung, Roy Cheung, Eddie Ko Hung

Lunatic Frog Women

  By

★½
“How can you not love a film with that title? Well… “

This came out the same year as Golden Queens Commando and Pink Force Commando and feels like a Taiwanese knock-off, taking a similarly bulk approach to its action heroines. They escape from (what I discovered lately was) a North Vietnamese prison, with the help of the warden, who is in love with one of his captives – he comes along too, and they all end up on an island where there’s a guerilla force, run by the Captain, whom we’ll get back to later. They become part of her “Ladies Marine Corps”, and start to train. One of the girls’ mothers shows up, offering to take her back to Hong Kong, but the farewell party is interrupted by pirates, who kill the mother. Two of the platoon desert. Finally – and we’re talking an hour into a movie that runs only 85 minutes – the training is over, and the Slightly-Irritated Frogwomen (movie titler, please note) head off on their first mission, to recover a cache of diamonds hidden on a North Vietnamese boat.

I confess a palpable sense of disappointment when I realized that title was inappropriately spaced: it should be “Frogwomen” – as in scuba divers, not the bizarre results of some medically dubious experimentation. Which would have been a great deal more entertaining than watching apparently endless training footage of them swimming underwater, which is nowhere near as exciting as the director thinks. Indeed, between the opening prison-break and the final assault, this is incredibly dull, to the point that, between the film and my wife’s pasta (which should only be available with a prescription, and not eaten before operating heavy machinery), it’s possible I might have closed my eyes and listened to the dialogue now and again. The action, when it eventually appears, isn’t bad: however, there’s far too little of it and the film’s pacing is terrible.

Minor points to note. If the soundtrack seems like it comes from a totally different film, that’s because it did. Alex In Wonderland notes it comes from The Road Warrior The three names listed above are the only ones listed in the credits of the English-language version, which seems only to exist in a version with Greek subs. It’s not clear if those actresses include the only now-recognizable face – I suspect no-one would have predicted at the time, that she’d go on to play, 18 years later, a major role in a movie nominated for an Oscar. For the captain is none other than Cheng Pei-Pei, who was Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger. Who knew?

Dir: T. Som Chai
Star: Patty Tie, Cathy Lee, Diana Dee
a.k.a. Virgin Commandos

The Deadly Angels

  By

★★½
“At the risk of repeating myself, poster not necessarily representative of movie contents.”

Inspired though the alternate titling of The Bod Squad might be, the original title likely gives a better idea of the inspiration for this 1977 Shaw Brothers flick: think Charlie’s rather than deadly. Three women, from Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, under the orders of Bosley Scotland Yard’s Miss Eve (Kraft, known to cult fans from Mighty Peking Man), go undercover in a night-club. Girls from there have been recruited to smuggle out of Hong Kong the proceeds from a series of brutal jewel robberies – the previous couriers all turn up stabbed to death after delivering the goods. However, the agents turn out to be a bit crap at the whole undercover thing, and the bad guys are none too happy to discover undercover operatives in their midst.

The main problem is, this takes way to long to get to the action. Outside of a pretty decent training sequence, there’s very little to speak of for the first hour. The film tries to make up in sex, what it doesn’t deliver in violence, with plenty of nudity and coercive sex, but the only point of note is an impressive death by fire extinguisher, inflicted on a witness by the chief villain’s main squeeze (Shaw Yin Yin, one of the decade’s leading erotic actresses in Hong Kong).

Things do perk up in the final reel, with a series of pretty decent battles, in which the girls take on a host of minions, with a little help from Li (Liu), whose father was the one who got “extinguished” (and who, like most Hong Kong martial artists of the time, appears to be trying to channel the very busy spirit of the late Bruce Lee). The agents also have some neat gadgets, such as a belt-buckle that become a spiked yo-yo kind of weapon, a folding cross-bow and a hair scrunchie which forms part of an explosive slingshot. More of these being put to use, and less of victims being slapped around, would have upped the entertainment quotient. You can see the influence this would have on 80’s entries in the genre, but at this point, we’re still talking “barely crawled out of the sea” in evolutionary terms.

Dir: Hun Choi, Hsueh Li Pao
Star: Nancy Yen, Dana, Liu Yang, Evelyn Kraft