Blonde Fury (1989)

Blonde Fury (1989)
Aka: Lady Reporter; Righting Wrongs 2
Chinese Title: 師姐大晒
Translation: Big Sun Sister

Starring: Cynthia Rothrock, Meng Hoi, Chin Siu-Ho, Elizabeth Lee, Roy Chiao, Ronnie Yu, Billy Chow, Wu Ma, Tai Po, Jeff Falcon, Vincent Lyn
Director: Meng Hoi
Action Directors: Meng Hoi, Corey Yuen

Ah yes, the 80's. It's been quite a while...actually, I was too young to fully enjoy the 1980s. All I really remember is the Ninja Turtles movie...well, that may be a bit of an overstatement. Nonetheless, Ninja Turtles aside, there's something special about the 1980s. Unfortunately, I didn't learn about this special aspect of that decade until the late 1990s and to this day, I continue to see the fruits of this great phenomenon from time to time. What is this great thing of which I speak?

It is the Hong Kong action movie.

During the 1970s and the first years of the 1980s, most of the action movies coming out of Hong Kong were period piece kung fu films ("chopsockey flicks" if you will). However, all this changed in 1983 when Jackie Chan revolutionized the action film with his landmark film, Project A. The movie is a masterpiece of action filmmaking and with it we see the evolution of fight choreography, as Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung moved up from complicated, over-choreographed, and style-based fighting to something more realistic. In addition to a change in choreography, audiences saw the inclusion (or rise in importance) of back-breaking stunt work. Actors and stunt players were thrown off of balconies and onto chairs and tables with reckless abandon, all for the sake of entertaining the audience.

It worked, and soon the action fan was blessed with the rise of the modern HK action film. These films were characterized by generally unimportant plots, comic filler in between the fight scenes, excellent fight scenes, and stunts that'll make most people cringe. The genre ran strong from 1983 until about 1990. The following year saw the release of Once Upon a Time in China and the rise of the "New Wave" kung fu film which dominated until the second half of the 1990s. Nevertheless, the 80s action film genre saw some of the best fights ever choreographed and this is even more impressive when you consider that there were no computers and little (if any) wires used to create the stunts and moves shown in these films.

Unfortunately, the 80s are over now and with the decade went the 80s HK action film (with the exception of Jackie Chan). In the wake of The Matrix, most action films today rely on CGI effects and "MTV editing" and other camera tricks to make the actors (a lot of whom aren't real martial artists) look good on film. While there are some occasional great moments in these films, few have come to close to the greatness of years past. The best movie made from the late 1990s onward to catch the flavor of the old HK action flicks is Drive with Mark Dacascos.

While the vast majority of the talent that worked in front of and behind the camera were Chinese, there were some Westerners who got their start in these films. While they were often cast as villains, these roles more often than not proved to be the best showcases for their talents. One name, however, stands alone as the gwailo actress who rose above villain status to star as the heroine in a number of films. Not only that, but the small handful of movies she made in Hong Kong at the beginning of her career have been the best films of her career, which has indeed been a long one. Who is this special actress? Who is it that has risen above the "Caucasian villain" and "frail woman" stereotypes to make a special name for herself among the greats of action cinema.

It is the the Queen of the American B movie: Cynthia Rothrock.

Our film starts out with some American FBI higher-ups talking about a counterfeit ring working out of Hong Kong. According to the dossiers of the suspects, most of them are accomplished martial artists. It kind of makes you wonder: To work for any organized crime outfit in Hong Kong (or Taiwan), do you have to know martial arts? How do they choose their henchmen? Do they hold a tournament like Mr. Han from Enter the Dragon? Or do they go around to martial arts schools and ask the most advanced students if they want to become criminals?

Well, the Americans decide that even the counterfeit ring is out of their geographical jurisdiction, that it's their progative to send in an agent anyways. Why? Because we're Americans and that's our job, to mess in everyone else's affairs. I guess that's the typical foreign perception of us. Oh well, wuddiagonnado? They decide to send their best agent Cindy (Cynthia Rothrock), who's an accomplished martial artist and fluent Chinese speaker (thanks to whoever dubbed her). She's to go undercover as a reporter at a newspaper whose head editor is suspected of being in on the crime.

Arriving in Hong Kong, Cindy decides to stay with an old girlfriend, whose dad just happens to be the prosecuting attorney in the case against the head counterfeiter. The dad is played by Roy Chiao, who in the 1980s held a monopoly for roles as lawyers and judges in these movies.

At the newspaper, she's given some obnoxious reporter partner. On their first assignment, the two go to cover a story about a burning building and before you can say "wushu," Cindy is already running into the burning building to rescue a child, attracting the attention of Hai (Meng Hoi), a reporter from a rival, failing newspaper. Hai decides to follow Cindy around, hoping to find out something interesting about her.

Cindy discovers that the newspaper she's working for is using its grounds to produce the counterfeit bills. But no sooner than she finds out (bear in mind that "finding out" includes a nice stunt-driven fight scene on a bamboo scaffolding), she's arrested by her partner, who's an undercover cop. The cop's superior (Melvin Wong, who also seemed to make a living playing police chiefs in these films) decides to not press charges on Cindy but asks her to leave Hong Kong.

Cindy's about to leave Hong Kong but unfortunately, there are some complications to the storyline. Her friend's father is kidnapped by Huang Te (Ronnie Yu*), the head counterfeiter. When he refuses to accept any sort of bribe, Huang gives him a drug that induces madness, causing him to be unable to prosecute Huang at the trial.

Cindy decides to stay to find out what happened. While Huang Te starts sending his men to harass Cindy's friend and find her father's file on Huang, Cindy finds help in the form of an insurance agent (Chin Siu-Ho) and Hai, who witnessed the prosecutor's kidnapping and even mangaged to get some pictures of the incident...

This summary accounts for the first forty-five minutes or so of the movie. The second half kicks into higher gear as Cindy and her comrades begin to put pressure (i.e. get into a lot of fights) on Huang Te and his gang. This culminates in an excellent climax that takes place on a rope net pyramid, in a labyrinth of metal containers, and on a moving truck.

Blonde Fury has typical 80s action film written all over it. The plot is fairly routine and uncompelling, but the plots in these movies almost always exist to give the characters reasons to get in fights. Most of the time in between action scenes is dedicated to light humor, the kind of which that isn't as amusing as Jackie Chan humor nor as mind-numbingly goofy as Wong Jing humor. It's more unremarkable humor, but the movie is paced well enough that this isn't a problem. That was one of the problems with Yes Madam, which took time away from Cythina Rothrock AND Michelle Yeoh and gave it to the supporting characters (one of whom happened to be Meng Hoi), who weren't all that funny.

In addition to the typical 80s HK action film plot structure, this movie has a typical 80s HK action film cast. I already mentioned Melvin Wong and Roy Chiao, who seem to be reprising the same roles they had in so many other films of the same ilk. Meng Hoi, the film's director and choreographer, takes a prominent supporting role as the reporter Hai. Like I mentioned in my review of Hell's Wind Staff, most of Meng Hoi's roles in the 1980s were those of comic supporting characters. This film is no different. Unfortunately, Meng doesn't get to fight in this film (altough he does get beat up by Billy Chow). Rounding off the supporting cast is regular character actor Wu Ma as Hai's father, Tai Po (a regular in most Jackie Chan movies of the era) as Hai's partner, perennial movie bad guys Billy Chow and Chung Fat as...bad guys (who would've guessed?).

In spite of a typical plot and supporting cast, what's special about this movie is Cynthia Rothrock. She owns this movie. This is her movie and no one else's. This is impressive considering that she's not Chinese nor really speaks Chinese fluently. If you look at some of her other Chinese films, she had to share screen time with other main performers. In Righting Wrongs, it was with Yuen Biao. In Yes Madam, it was with Michelle Yeoh. In Blonde Fury, it is Cynthia Rothrock all the way: the plot, the fight scenes, a good portion of the humor...it's all hers. I had the opportunity to meet Cynthia Rothrock personally at a martial arts tournament some 6 years ago or so. I was a bit..well...naïve, I guess. The first thing I said to her was, "I just saw you in Millionaire's Express and you were really impressive" (really). I then asked her what her favorite movie was and she responded that it was this one. I can understand why.

Most of these movies depend solely on their action scenes for any degree of success. The set-pieces make or break these sorts of films, especially since most of the time we really don't care about actual plot itself. First of all, let me say that this movie has an excellent cast of martial artists. First and foremost is Cynthia Rothrock, who gets about 90% of the action sequences and looks great. I'm not sure if she fights better here than in Righting Wrongs or Yes Madam, but she's awfully good in this one.

In addition to Cynthia, we have Chin Siu-Ho, Billy Chow, Vincent Lyn, Jeffrey Falcon, and some really good Thai dude. Chin Siu-Ho, who's best known for starring alongside Jet Li in Tai Chi Master and Fist of Legend, get's an OK showing. Well, he fights good, but only has one real fight against Billy Chow. Billy Chow...what can I say? The guy is like the Al Leong or Toru Tanaka (that big Japanese guy who's built like a mountain and always plays a villain) of the Jade Screen. Billy Chow, a Canadian-born muay thai fighter, has played the villain in dozens of HK action films, and, much like Hwang Jang Lee, always brings a sense of authority to whatever film he's in. Vincent Lyn, who fights Cynthia in the climax, also looks fantastic. For those of you who don't know him by name, he fought alongside Ken Lo against Jackie Chan in the wind tunnel sequence of Operation Condor. Topping it off is Jeffrey Falcon, who also is an extremely talented martial artist. Falcon is best known now in cult circles for his independent movie, Six-String Samurai. That movie is a truly weird film, mixing rock n' roll, Japanese samurai films, and a post-apocalyptic wasteland plot all into one strange mixture.

Enough about the actors themselves, what about the action sequences themselves? They're top notch, luckily. Meng Hoi and Corey Yuen handle the choreography and provide with a number of memorable fights. Where this movie shines is in the use of environment and surroundings to make the fights creative. Scaffoldings, nets, walls, metal containers, etc. are all used by the combatants to great effect. This is actually one of the best movies outside of a Jackie Chan film to make such good work of the surrounding environment. All in all, Meng and Corey manage to find a good balance between pure hand-to-hand combat and stunt-driven action, something that Jackie Chan movies sometimes fail to do.

Because of the similarites in cast (Cynthia Rothrock and Roy Chiao) and Corey Yuen's presence behind the camera, this movie is often said to be sequel to Righting Wrongs, although it isn't the case. What this movie is, however, is a solid modern-day action film and a tour-de-force for Cynthia Rothrock's talents, the which seem to have been misrepresented in her American films. That's too bad, since watching this film shows all of us that Cynthia is the man...well, sort of.