Tag: hong kong

Naked Weapon

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★★★★

Naked Weapon (2002)After a decade of “sequels” that weren’t worth the video-tape they were apparently filmed on, Wong Jing finally went back to the well in 2002 for what is, in truth, a surprisingly-tame movie. Given the names of the lead actresses (“Maggie Q”, “Anya”) sounded more like porn starlets than anything, I was expecting loadsa sleazy fun, but they’re model names, and this is probably closer to Heroic Trio – also directed by Ching – than the original.

In fact, the nipple-count here barely reaches two, mostly right at the start when Madam M’s (Wong) assassinettes go on the job, only to be killed by a rocket-propelled grenade. Her boss clearly takes the long-term view, kidnapping forty thirteen-year olds girls, and whisking them off to a remote island for a six-year version of Survivor. At the end, they are down to three in number: Charlene (Q), Katt (Anya) and Jill (Jewel Lee, who is a genuine Wu Shu expert, and also doubled for the other stars when necessary). However, dogged CIA agent Jack (Wu) is still on the trail of Madam M, falls in love with Charlene during an encounter in the back of an ice-cream truck – which must have been fun, given Wu was Q’s ex-boyfriend – and vows to save her from a life of meaningless murder.

The action sequences are great: director Ching is noted for his wire-work in films like A Chinese Ghost Story and Hero – it’s used to great effect here, just don’t expect “realistic” fighting skills. The editing is weird in that it’s not coherent, but still works – it’s almost like highlights, in that consecutive shots clearly don’t connect, but still are effective, and give a good sense of how the fight is progressing. The editors on shows like Alias could learn a lot from this. Speaking of which, the film has much the same feel as a feature-length version of the series, back when it was still good fun, and before the whining and angst took over. Exotic locations, high-fashion, plenty of ass-kicking – on that level, this film certainly delivers. It’s also a nice bonus to see Cheng Pei-Pei (Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger) as Charlene’s mother, though I kept expecting her to bust out a few moves on the bad guys.

Instead, there’s a laughable scene after an assassination attempt on her by Jill, at the behest of Madam M, who realises she could lose Charlene back to her mother. Jack ends up carrying the wounded parent to the hospital, but keeps stopping to converse with Charlene, which had us screaming, “The hospital! It’s over there! She’s bleeding profusely!” at the TV set. And in general, I’m unconvinced by the story, which suddenly shifts angles in the third act. Up until then, it’s been angling towards a confrontation between the girls and Madam M; that’s suddenly discarded, in favour of a villain we’d not seen before.

Despite possessing more holes than a golf resort, Wong Jing’s script is pretty restrained; even the lesbian aspects are more implied than shown, and mercifully, the dumb comedy beloved by Wong is almost entirely absent. However, there is a rather nasty rape scene to end the training; while I can see the point, it does go on past what’s necessary and doesn’t fit with the generally slick tone. For even when the film is gunning down pre-pubescent girls for attempting to leave Madam M’s fantasy island, it does so in a…well, “tasteful manner” isn’t perhaps the phrase, but you know what I mean.

For in general, this is fast-paced, mindless entertainment, not to be taken the least bit seriously. At least, that’s my view: reading others, it’s clear opinions differ sharply on this one: “In a year of relatively disappointing Asian films, it’s one of the worst around,” says filmsasia.net, but hkfilm.net calls it, “The best movie of 2002.” Weirder still, one person described this as “boredom-inducing”, which had me checking to see whether they were discussing the same film. If you’re bored here, you probably need to lay off the caffeinated beverages for a few days: those of us with normal metabolisms should be more than entertained by this fluff.

Is it better than Naked Killer? A difficult call, and one that likely depends on your state of mind – as well as whether the word “good” could ever be applied to Killer, a lurid blast that really could come from Hong Kong, and probably only from before the Chinese takeaway of the colony. Weapon is certainly better-crafted and has more crossover appeal: our son was going to pick it up in Blockbuster, till we informed him it was already part of our unwatched pile. On the whole, I think Weapon is the one more likely to be watched again in future – if only because Killer would require the room to be carefully swept for lurking minors and maiden aunts first.

[The sidenote of importance here for the DVD is: watch your language. As usual with Hong Kong movies, we opted to see it in Chinese with English subtitles. It wasn’t until the making-of documentary that we realised it had been shot mostly in English (Wu + Q do, others, such as Cheng, don’t), and we’d actually been watching a dubbed version. Oops. ;-) However, upon further viewing (hey, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it!), it doesn’t really make that much difference. The main benefit of the English track is, at least on the DVD we were watching, it’s available in DTS, which definitely enhances things.]

Dir: Ching Siu-Tung
Stars: Maggie Q, Anya, David Wu, Almen Wong

Come Drink With Me

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★★★
“Good, but don’t believe the hype.”

Perhaps I was expecting too much, after reading reviews that described this as, “one of, if not the, greatest martial arts film of all time.” It’s not, at least, not from my perspective, with a storyline that is sparse and badly-finished; the heroine and chief villain vanish before the climax and there’s absolutely no resolution, with the film suddenly diverting into a battle between a pair of supporting characters. It’s a shame, as Cheng Pei-Pei [the Jade Fox of Crouching Tiger was once a very intense teenager] deserves better. She plays Golden Swallow, the sword-adept daughter of the Governor, who is sent to rescue her brother after he’s kidnapped by bandits who want to exchange him for their leader.

The action is a mixed bag; there are some very bad effects, which jar the viewer out of an appreciation of the real, almost balletic, physicality, easily appreciated through the long tracking shots. These are as much dances as fights – Cheng had being doing ballet since she was eight. Less effective is the alcoholic beggar Drunken Cat (Yueh), who wanders through the storyline, with his band of ragamuffins, bringing things to a grinding halt when they appear. Of course, it’s giving little away if I say he turns out to be a martial arts master with entirely his own agenda, but unfortunately, that’s where the film heads, the further things go on.

Poor Golden Swallow is all but abandoned, and that’s a shame: the scene where she sits calmly in a tea-house, as the villains work at gauging her skills, is a masterpiece of suppressed, yet inevitable violence, up there with the best moments of Sergio Leone. There’s also a very odd subplot in which Swallow is initially mistaken for a man; it’s so utterly implausible as to make us wonder if it was a subtitling mistake. And maybe it was, for half-way through, this is discarded without explanation. It’s unsatisfying, and adds to my feeling that, while I can see the influence of this 1966 movie, it’s a case where later entries that build upon the foundation, do a better job.

Dir: King Hu
Star: Cheng Pei-Pei, Yueh Hua, Chen Hung-lieh, Yeung Chi-hing

Queen Boxer

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★★
“Lee’s skills all but concealed by dreadful release of her debut.”

I have to say, this film would probably merit a higher score given a better presentation. Not only is the GoodTimes DVD barely VHS quality, dubbed and horribly cropped, the dialogue is missing from the right audio. Worst of all, the two tracks are out of sync, meaning that every punch is accompanied by a double sound effect. If there’s a more dreadful DVD in existence, I don’t want to see it: those responsible should suffer the fate depicted in the fabulous poster, shown on the right.

However, one suspects that even under better conditions, large chunks of this would be pretty poor, bordering as it does on the incoherent, with inadequate definition both of plot and characters. Also known as The Avenger, this 1972 film marked Judy Lee’s first film – originally from Taiwan, she was a Peking Opera classmate of Angela Mao. In this, she plays a woman for revenge on the man who killed her brother and gouged his eyes out, and teams up with another guy (Yeung), who is fed up paying protection money to the same villain. They enter the boss’s lair, but he gets shot, and they have to back off – only for her to return, and take them on by herself.

Those two action scenes are both lengthy and pretty good. The lack of directorial inspiration shown here is actually a virtue, since he basically just turns the camera on and off – this is what you need to admire Lee’s skills, which aren’t bad at all. However, up until the last 20 minutes, the only fun is making fun of the film, or listening to the chunks from Shaft and Bond ripped off on the soundtrack. That, and a glorious, deeply satisfying final shot, aren’t enough to save things – but, being honest, few movies could probably survive such godawful treatment.

Dir: Han Wah [according to the DVD sleeve, anyway…]
Star: Judy Lee, Yeung Kwan, Wong Yeuk Ping, Lee Ying

Silverhawk

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★★½
“Comic-book stuff – unfortunately, in the bad sense of the phrase.”

There’s no doubt about the aesthetic they’re aiming for here; heroine with secret identity, sneering evil nemesis, gadgets, etc. Take a Marvel comic from the 60’s, transplant it to the modern Far East, and there you are. Indeed, this period is apparently where SilverHawk originated; unfortunately, the makers failed to learn from similar failures such as The Avengers, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West, and the results are lacklustre.

The problem here is mostly a script with no idea how to fill the gaps between the fight scenes, succumbing to the nemesis of so many HK films: juvenile humour. Jen is the worst offender, playing a cop out to track down Lulu Wong (Yeoh), a.k.a. SilverHawk, who is so incompetent we’re given no credible reason to believe he’d be put in charge of tea-making, never mind a high-profile investigation. They were in the same orphanage as kids: yes, it’s that kind of script. Inevitably, they team up to go against bad guy Alexander Wolfe (Goss) who wants to control people’s minds using mobile phones – the satirical potential in this idea is, inevitably, never realised. The potential for product placement, on the other hand…Nokia and BMW are the big winners there.

That’d all be okay, if the action was above average. It’s not. While still the best thing here, we actually fell asleep during the climax, and had to rewind once we woke up. There’s little sense of escalation: once you’ve seen the opening battle, that’s pretty much all the movie has to offer, save various gimmicks. Silverhawk battles thugs on bungee cords! [The producers were clearly hoping we’d all forgotten Tomb Raider, which at least made a thin pretense at explaining itself there] Thugs on roller-blades! Wolfe is clearly not short of imagination – except when it comes to giving his henchmen firearms, naturally.

It’s great to see Yeoh, now in her forties, still do a motorcycle jump across the Great Wall. However, things like the clunky mix of languages cripple this, and the result definitely won’t help Yeoh’s career. After Tomorrow Never Dies and Crouching Tiger, the world was at her feet, but projects such as The Touch and this one have proved very disappointing. Her talent remains clear; her judgement, on the other hand, is clearly very questionable.

Dir: Jingle Ma
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Richie Jen, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang

Don’t Play With Fire

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★★★½
“A grim cinematic road-accident; hard to watch, yet harder to stop watching.”

This bleak, nihilist view of 1980’s Hong Kong ran into severe trouble with local censors, for its depiction of the colony as populated solely by violent brutes. Leading these is Pearl (Lin), a teenage girl who redefines the term “troubled”, and whose brother (Lo) is a cop with a short fuse. She witnesses a hit-and-run accident and browbeats the three kids involved into joining her in a relentlessly-escalating series of violent escapades. When they find themselves in possession of 800 million yen belonging to gun-smugglers, you just know things are going to go wrong. And they do: pointedly, Hark finishes the film with photos taken during the 1967 riots in the colony. Make of that what you will…

Right from the start, with Pearl sticking pins in the head of a mouse, the film doesn’t shy from depicting cruel behaviour, particularly towards animals, and there’s hardly a sympathetic character in the film. Pearl does at least have some justification for her lack of morality, and her attempts to weld her new “friends” into something like a team, or even a family are touchingly pathetic. At one point she suggests they’ll escape to Canada and live happily ever after, which is definitely not going to happen. However, the film swerves wildly around, leaping from plot to plot with little coherence, though censorship may explain why certain threads, such as the bombing campaign, seem especially underdeveloped.

Whether robbing a gang of Japanese tourists, or taking revenge on a banker who gave them bad information, Pearl is the lynch-pin who keeps the movie focused, and when she departs, the interest level drops noticeably. Still, if you’ve only seen Tsui’s subsequent, more fantastic films, the venomous realism will be a shock. Keep an eye out for him in an uncredited role as a toilet attendant(!), as well as fellow directors Ronnie Yu and Stephen Shin.

Dir: Tsui Hark
Stars: Lin Chen-chi, Lo Lieh, Albert Au, Paul Che
a.k.a. Dangerous Encounters of the 1st Kind

Angel on Fire

  By

★★½
“Dumb but not irredeemable – never mind the quality of the action, look at the quantity!”

Supermodel-thief Mimi (Melanie Marquez) steals an artifact from a Chinese temple, then heads to the Philippines, via Hong Kong. HK and Chinese cops (Khan & Yeung) are on her tail, as is former partner Ko. This is, frankly, a mess. Yeung apparently does no detective work; Khan goes on a date to an illegal street fight; they’re supposedly partners, but only share one scene; and what is the stolen item? It’s only ever called “the precious thing” (at least in the sub version; even we wouldn’t touch the dub [right] with a ten-foot pole). I found it all amusing rather than irritating; your mileage may vary…

Actionwise, it largely explodes in the lengthy finale which occupies about thirty minutes, sprawls across what seems like most of the Philippines, and fails to make much sense either – we certainly lost track of who was doing what to who. While Yeung is hardly allowed to act, she does get a couple of good fights, but the wire-work is poor, with one especially obvious harness. On the other hand, Khan’s martial-arts abilities are underused, and she gets to spend time hanging out with that apparently rare breed, an honest taxi-driver (Ricketts). A couple of decent moments, and Khan’s usual watchability, lift this up to just about acceptable, though only if you are in a forgiving mood.

Dir: Phillip Ko
Star: Cynthia Khan, Philip Ko, Sharon Yeung, Ronnie Ricketts

The Magic Crane

  By

★★★½
“Plotplotfightplotfightplotfightfightplotfight.”

This is one of those Hong Kong movies which seems to believe that if they cram in enough complications and characters, you’ll overlook the deficiencies. They’re kinda right: if you can let go (I did, Chris couldn’t), you will enjoy this a whole lot more, though here, it’d take five times as much plot to make you ignore the truly woeful titular bird. There would seem to have been confusion in the prop department over whether the request for a “giant crane” meant a bird or a piece of construction equipment: it looks as if they split the difference, building something with feathers, which remains (painfully) obviously mechanical.

All the kung-fu masters are getting together to carve out territories; Leung and Lau represent about the smallest school imaginable, but are befriended by Pak Wan Fai (Mui), a mysterious lady who rides the crane. Her foster-sister (Kwan) has been building resentment for 20+ years, and inevitably, someone else is plotting to wipe out all their martial-arts rivals. The battles are great, and most of the characters too (among the supporting cast, especially memorable is Jan Lau’s engagingly slutty Lady Jade Flute, who brings a Basic Instinct approach to her kung-fu) – but there are way too many, and the same goes for the plot elements (Killer bats? A guy with no legs in a well?). Less would certainly be more; instead, they don’t get the attention they deserve. As you’d expect from a Tsui Hark production, the visual side is stylish and impressive – just don’t look for a high degree of coherence.

Dir: Benny Chan
Star: Tony Leung, Anita Mui, Rosamund Kwan, Damian Lau

Fatal Termination

  By

★★★
“No kids were harmed in the making of this film. Fingers crossed, anyway.”

At first, this isn’t much of anything, least of all an action heroine movie. Cop Simon Yam investigates a customs officer (Shou) who is smuggling guns; it’s pretty ho-hum until an innocent underling is killed after finding evidence of the crimes. When his sister Moon (Lee) and her husband (Lui) get involved, this swiftly leads to the one scene in this film that everyone remembers…

The villains snatch Moon’s daughter off the street (literally!), and drive away with Mom on the bonnet, trying to fight her way into the car. The daughter – who is probably about 2 1/2 – is dangling out the passenger window, held by her ponytail, as they whizz through Hong Kong streets. This is impossibly impressive CGI (especially for 1990), and I suspect they genuinely did hang a frightened toddler out the window of a speeding car… At the bottom of the page, you’ll find a clip which gives you an idea of what we mean, from an era where traumatising small children was apparently not an issue of concern. It’s one where you go, “Well, they’re only showing it in clos… Oh, damn. Okay, at least they’re not going faster than 15 mp… WHAAAAAAT?”

This kicks off an amazingly intense 15 minutes in which, without giving too much away, things get even worse for the daughter. :-( It belies both the opening, and a finale that’s little more than a lot of people driving around, shooting at each other. Moon Lee has a cool fight against the big boss, and gets to fire off some large weaponry, but the one who truly deserves to be called an action heroine in this film, is that un-named little girl.

Dir: Andrew Kam
Star: Ray Lui, Philip Ko, Moon Lee, Robin Shou + the unknown toddler

Pink Force Commando

  By

★★★
“At least they got the title straight. Now, about the plot…”

Pretty much the same cast and crew as GQC [initials used to prevent lengthy debate over exact title] bring you, if anything, an even more surreal adventure. We get footage from the earlier film to introduce the characters, not mentioning that a lot of them died first time round. And what era is this? The original was WW2, but at one point here, a character sails off on a jet-ski. Anyway, our heroines find themselves aligned against the evil swine who betrayed them, whose motley gang includes ninjas, banditos and the KKK. This time, Brigitte Lin is Jackal – at least she gets a new character. Initially with the villain, she sees the light and proves loyalty to her old pals by cutting her own arm off. She then meets “The Heart-Broken Man”, who provides a nifty prosthetic, complete with gun and power-drill attachments.

I am not making any of this up, I swear.

On the plus side, once it actually gets on track with the story, it’s as effective as GQC, with a final battle that’s rousing and well-staged. As before, however, it takes its own sweet time to get there, meandering via betrayal, reunion, more betrayal, amputation, a subplot involving a really big diamond y mucho mucho mas, as they say on Mexican TV adverts. None of this will hold your interest but, hey, if you don’t like this plot, no need to worry, there’ll be another one along in a minute. Chu’s “everything but the kitchen sink” approach can either infuriate or entertain – probably both – but at least Chris stayed awake for this one.

Dir: Chu Yin-Ping
Stars: Brigitte Lin, Elsa Yeung, Sally Yeh, Sylvia Pang

Golden Queens Commando

  By

★★★
“One title for each heroine. And each plot element too, probably.”

I’m going with the title on the print – your opinion may differ. As it likely will for this insane distillation of The Magnificent Seven and The Dirty Dozen, complete with music lifted from both Western and War genres. It certainly isn’t dull: incoherent and dumb, maybe, but you expect that in an early work from the director of Flying Dagger, one of the maddest Asian movies ever. Lin, credited as “Venus”, plays the fetchingly eyepatched Black Fox, who breaks out of jail with six associates, and convinces them to help destroy a chemical weapons plant in occupied Manchuria.

This task occupies only the last ten minutes of the film: the rest covers life in prison, how the women got there, a dumb subplot where the ladies get captured and take part in goofy contests (such as spaghetti-eating) to win their freedom, etc. Calling these “of variable interest” is being very kind, yet when not diverted, the film works well; the heroines, each with different skills, are strong and well-defined. I was able to recount their individual fates the next day to Chris, who’d fallen asleep – in defense, she’d been sinusy and on the Robitussin. But without saying too much, the heroic mortality rate here is higher than in either Magnificent or Dirty…

Shame the print is badly cropped: a caption reading “tan Plate” is presumably “Tibetan Plateau”. While the production is often as clumsy as the presentation, it’s one of the first girls-with-guns films to come from Hong Kong, so respect is due. And given sufficient leeway and appropriate expectations, this is stupid fun on its own terms.

Dir: Chu Yin-Ping
Star: Brigitte Lin, Elsa Yeung, Sally Yeh, Sylvia Pang
a.k.a. Amazon Commandos [BRNS.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen Commando [Alex-in-Wonderland.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen’s Commando [IMDB.com]
a.k.a. Golden Queen’s Commandos [HKMDB.com]
a.k.a. Jackie Chan’s Crime Force [Arena Video title]
a.k.a. Seven Black Heroines [BrigitteLin.com]