Tag: hong kong

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]

Queen’s High

  By

★★★★
“Nothing like Kill Bill at all – no, really! :-)”

It’s surprising no-one has mentioned the similarity this 1991 pic has to Kill Bill, especially given QT’s liking, both for lifting plots and Hong Kong movies. Here, Cynthia Khan plays Kwanny, the daughter in a gangster family whose wedding day is interrupted by the treacherous slaughter of her intended (and a good few others). Thus explodes a spiral of revenge and betrayal, in which she gets plenty of chance to use her martial arts and gun skills. Of course, there are differences – she is unaware of her enemy within – but the overlap is striking. No doubt Tarantino will claim not to have heard of it – any more than he’d seen City on Fire, before making Reservoir Dogs…

On its own merits, Queen’s High stands up nicely, after a sluggish start. You might be wondering how to keep track of a parade of characters, but don’t worry, they won’t last long. The wedding-day slaughter on its own gets it our seal of approval, a masterpiece of slo-mo squibbing that’s in my personal top ten of action heroine sequences, and brings a new meaning to “until death do us part”. It also lets Cynthia Khan, who has her share of acting talent, transform from happy daughter to avenging angel, as during In the Line of Duty 3. The action side finally bursts into life in the final reel, Kwanny taking on a whole warehouse of bad guys, and discovering who ordered the massacre. The film certainly has weaknesses, but such strengths easily make up for them.

Dir: Chris Lee Kin Sang
Star: Cynthia Khan, Simon Yam, Newton Lai, Shum Wai

Dragon Chronicles – The Maidens of Heavenly Mountain

  By

★★★½
“Cool!” battles “Eh?”, and comes out ahead – albeit only after a lengthy struggle.

Going in, I knew this had a reputation for incoherent plotting, but after 10+ years watching HK movies, I figured I’d cope. Wrong: I sank within two minutes. An incomprehensible opening voiceover makes this feel like part 17 of an ongoing series; from there on, characters, sects, and magical kung-fu abilities (such as Shifting Stance, which lets you blink in and out of reality, or the self-explanatory Melting Stance) arrive with rush-hour frequency. Basic principle: various factions struggle for martial arts supremacy. Central to these battles are four women, who initally fight among themselves, before realising they must band together to face the ultimate enemy. If I said more, I’d be engaging in wild speculation.

The fact that you don’t really know who is good, evil or any point in between does hurt the film, and every scene with dialogue seems to make things worse. Just to confuse things even more, Brigitte Lin plays two of the women, though Cheung Man perhaps does best as the feisty, light-hearted Purple, whose ambitions exceed her actual skills. Lose any desire to understand what’s happening: the sets and costumes are spectacular, and the fights are imaginative, despite cheesy visuals, and sound effects that appear to have been lifted from Return of the Jedi. Instead of following the plot, try to copy the cool magical gestures of the characters. We did. :-) Maybe some day, we too will be able to regenerate a torso from the severed stumps of our legs…

Dir: Chin Wing Keung
Star: Gong Li, Brigitte Lin, Cheung Man
a.k.a. Semi-Gods and Semi-Devils

Her Name is Cat

  By

★★★
“A mix of the horribly effective, and the plain horrible.”

Clarence Ford seems to be after a PG-13 rated version of his hit, Naked Killer, reining in the sex while keeping the action. That it doesn’t succeed is more due to staggering ineptness in the superfluous attempts to give it emotional depth. Any movie is in trouble when someone says, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” never mind a kick-ass action flick. Fortunately, that side is luscious, well-staged and shot, and it’s this that saves the film from being a disaster. The above rating is thus a composite: 4.5 for action, 1.0 for drama, divide by two, and round up for the wildly gratuitous, wholly inaccurate, very non-PC poster.

Wong plays Yin Ying (a.k.a. Cat, I guess), an assassin from China who falls in love with the cop hunting her (Michael Wong), and wants out of the murder business. But he wants her employer too, who thus sends other killers after the policeman. She defends him, and battle is joined. The Cat/cop relationship is awful, impeded by a portentous voiceover and an apparent ignorance that this has been done a million times before. You may also find yourself wondering whether a full wedding dress is standard gear aboard Hong Kong yachts.

It doesn’t help that Michael Wong is wooden as ever, though even Anthony Wong would be hard pressed in scenes requiring him to mope over home videos of his ex-wife and kid, as mournful easy-listening music plays. When Cat goes to war, however, the results are excellent: particularly outstanding are a brawl in a burning building, and a death nicked from The Omen. Could have done without the workout footage, but given the amount of noodles Cat eats (a nice touch, since her family died of starvation), it’s probably necessary.

Dir: Clarence Ford
Star: Almen Wong, Michael Wong, Kenix Kwok, Ben Lam

Velvet Gloves

  By

★½

This film is a 90-minute explanation of why Jade Leung’s star never took off. While some decisions Michelle Yeoh made might have been questionable, at least her films were rarely boring, and never down to the level of this piece of tedious dreck. It depicts the struggles of a class of policewomen (including Jade), to become part of the elite. The idea certainly has potential – the Inspector Wears Skirts series has a similar premise – but here, there is almost no character given to any of the girls; they all blur into each other, like a dozen GI Jane-wannabes.

The director – whoever they may be, since the credits were all in Chinese, and the Internet offers limited assistance either – also seems to believe that if two minutes of the ladies taking on an assault course is good, ten minutes must be better. Another example is the seven-day forced march, which feels like it was filmed in real time, and screws up the most obvious opportunity for tension. It does lead to a somewhat interesting sequence, where three of the women have to last two minutes fighting martial-arts instructors, to avoid getting kicked out. But there is no flow to the plot at all – it lurches from set-piece to set-piece without cohesion or progression. All of which would be tolerable if the action elements weren’t handled in such a lacklustre fashion, but there’s nothing here to write home about, except in a “PS. Obvious stunt doubling” kind of way.

For some strange reason, this film appears to be unavailable on DVD – should you want to see it (and if you do, I’ve clearly failed in my mission here), you’ll have to see the VCD, with its illegible subtitles and a plot synopsis which shakes hands and parts company with the truth after the first sentence. It opts to visit the land of Wild Fabrication instead, continuing: “Before graduation, the team is called to handle a hostage situation in a jewelry expo. Afterwards the girls are assigned to as the bodyguard of the first lady of a small country. But the first lady’s own rebellious guard kidnaps her and executes one of the girls…” There’s not a single word of truth there: the movie finishes – abruptly – on graduation day, after yet another training mission.

But if you know what film that synopsis actually describes, do let me know, because it’s almost certainly far more interesting and entertaining than this one. It may not be the worst action heroine film I’ve ever seen, but it’s probably the worst ever to come out of Hong Kong, which usually does such things with a certain degree of invention, enthusiasm and energy. None of these are visible here, in any amount.

Dir: Billy Chan Wui-Ngai
Stars: Jade Leung, Bobby Au, Farini Cheung, Zhang Fengyi

Satin Steel

  By

★★★½

This fast, furious, largely daft movie was Jade’s immediate follow up to the two Black Cat films. If they were based on Nikita, the inspiration here is clearly Lethal Weapon, with Leung as a headstrong cop (also named Jade Leung!) who believes in shooting first and asking questions…oh, somewhere between eventually and never. With her sensible partner (Lee), she chases evil weapons broker Mr. Fowler and his gang from Singapore to Indonesia. It eventually ends above a volcano, with Jade clinging desperately to a helicopter.

The elements here are hugely variable: Leung and Lee have great chemistry, but Lee’s boyfriend Paul (Chan) may be the most irritating bastard in cinema history – his every appearance provoked a strong desire to throw things at the TV, and we cheered loudly when he was gunned down, particularly since it shut him up for a bit. In contrast Russell Wong is more sympathetic as Fowler’s naive lawyer, though since we know what happened to Jade’s first husband, this relationship might as well be wearing a sweatshirt marked ‘Doomed’. One also wonders why an international arms dealer would employ a troupe of native dancers as henchmen.

While the plot and characterisation leaves a little to be desired in originality and execution, the action is plentiful and energetic. Of particular note is the previously-mentioned helicopter sequence – at first, we suspected heavy stunt doubling, but later on, there are a couple of shots which give pause for thought, and Jade deserves greater credit. It’s just a shame it ends so abruptly. Jade’s battle against the dancers is also pretty cool, and Lee has a good fight at a train station, culminating with a leap in front of an oncoming engine that merited an immediate rewind and rewatch.

There is, however, something obviously cheap and apparently rushed about the whole endeavour, and it feels like one of the later entries in Cynthia Khan’s filmography – particularly, Angel on Fire, which also had two policewomen from different lands, travelling to a third (and presumably, cheaper to film in!) country to find the villains. One suspects Jade was under pressure to make another movie while her star was still rising, regardless of the end product’s quality.

Dir: Tony Leung Siu-Hung
Stars: Jade Leung, Anita Lee, Russell Wong, Kenneth Chan