In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man (1990)

In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man (1990)
Chinese Title: 皇家師姐之中間人
Translation: Royal Sister: Middle Man

 

Starring: Cynthia Khan, David Wu, Elvina Wong, Lo Lieh, Billy Chow, Kim Maree Penn, Vincent Lyn, Chris Lee
Director: Cha Chuen Yee
Action Director: Chris Lee

If we talk of the great, long-running series from the Jade Screen, there will be a few films that automatically come to mind. The Once Upon a Time in China and Police Story films are arguably the most popular and most influential. The former kicked off the 1990s New Wave wire-fu craze and set Jet Li on his way to international stardom whereas the latter continued to cement Jackie Chan's popularity and are considered to be some of the most entertaining stunt-driven, modern action films ever made. Other long-running series include the God of Gamblers films, the Young and Dangerous movies, the Aces Go Places movies, and The Lucky Stars films.

In my review of Blonde Fury, I spoke of the greatness of the 80s HK action film, a genre of films characterized by incredible fight and stunt-driven action with little (if any) use of wires or camera tricks to make the fighters look good. Actually, the Police Story and Lucky Stars movies are part of this genre and stand as good examples of ingenious fight direction that made these movies so distinguished. But if we are not careful, we might miss a certain series that is just as influential as its contemporaries and, in terms of entries, is up there with the OUATIC as having the most entries. The series of which I speak is the In the Line of Duty series, which began in 1985 and continued until about 1991.

The first movie made in this series was Yes Madam, a movie made great by the fact that it kicked off both Michelle Yeoh's AND Cynthia Rothrock's careers, has one of the best action climaxes ever filmed, and, for all our purposes, kicked off the "girls n' guns" sub-genre of HK action films. It also introduced "Inspector Yeung" to the Jade Screen, who'd make six more official appearances and probably several other "unofficial" appearances in low-budget movies. The next film in the series was Royal Warriors, which also starred Michelle Yeoh and also is considered a classic movie.

After the first two movies, the series switched leading actresses after Michelle Yeoh went into (temporary) retirment. Replacing Michelle Yeoh was Taiwanese-born Yang Liqing, who was quickly redubbed "Cynthia Khan," in order to cash in on the popularity of Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh, who had been known as Michelle Khan in first movies. Like Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia was a dancer-turned action actress. However, unlike Michelle, Cynthia had already studied martial arts with her father when she was young, but as she got older, she began to study and focus on dancing. She was majoring in dance when she was approached for a role in In the Line of the Duty 3 (ITLOD from here on out) as Inspector Yeung, the character made popular by Michelle Yeoh.

She accepted the role, and ITLOD 3 went on to become an exploitation classic, a favorite among fans of the Jade Screen and female action cinema. I have not seen the movie myself, but I'm under the understanding that it is violent, brutal, and hardcore in all respects. I guess it made enough money to merit another series entry, because one year later, ITLOD 4 was released. Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping and co-starring Donnie Yen, two of the Yuen brothers, and of course, Cynthia, this film also is considered a classic action movie due to its non-stop action and stunt sequences, all of which were high-quality. ITLOD 4 is my favorite of the series and is my favorite Donnie Yen and Cynthia Khan movie.

A modest success, a fifth movie was made the following year. From this point on, most people believe that the series took a certain dip in quality. How much that dip actually is, is a matter of debate. Most people consider the last three entries of the series to be pretty entertaining action movies, if nothing else. I've only seen the fifth movie, which will be today's review. In all honesty, the movie actually improves on some of the flaws that plagued the first two movies, but more on that later.

The first scene of the movie sets the tone for the rest of the film: nonstop, no-nonsense action. We start off by watching Inspector Yeung (our Cynthia of course) chase a murder suspect in a car garage. At one point, in a moment of sheer filmmaking insanity, Cynthia does a jump kick through the windshield of the guy's car while it's in motion. The sequence then continues to a fight in an alleyway followed by a stunt/fight on the back of a moving truck(!). All in the first five minutes.

In the next scene, two caucasian guys are doing some shady business in an empty stadium. It seems that they're selling military secrets to some other guys, who turn out to be undercover CIA agents. The resulting chase sequence leaves the two agents dead. However, one of the bad guys is then killed in a gangland-style shooting on orders of his superior, a man known as "The General." The other information dealer (Vincent Lyn), we learn, is an American naval officer stationed in Hong Kong (or at least in HK on leave).

Also arriving in Hong Kong on the same ship is David (David Wu), Inspector Yeung's cousin. David makes friends with Alan (the information dealer) and as expected, leads to some complicated situations. You see, Alan works for the General smuggling U.S. military information for the General's organization to sell to whoever is willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, one night Alan and David are at a club getting drunk and hitting on women. Alan gets in a scuffle with some local marijuana pushers and gets killed by accident. All this is seen by one of the General's enforcers.

Thinking that the aforementioned ruffians and David had some knowledge of Alan's traitorous activities, the General puts a hit out on all of them. At the same time, David is arrested by the CIA, who suspect that he is part of the same organization and a spy as well. Davis escapes and soon goes into hiding with May, the last remaining drug dealer.

This accounts for about the first 30 minutes or so of the movie. The rest of movie is made up of various action set-pieces as Inspector Yeung balks at the CIA and does everything in her power (and outside of it, too) to protect David and May from the General's hitmen. As in the last film, Yeung has a really cool superior who's willing to look the other way while she gets the job done in ways that would be probably be illegal, like flying to S. Korea to single-handedly take down the General's organization and stuff.

Like the last entry in the series, ITLOD 5 is nearly non-stop action. It does have a plot, mind you, although it's not all that important. Well, maybe it is. Who cares? The plot is actually set up better than ITLOD 4, which had so much action that the plot could be best described as a bunch of good guys get into almost random fights with the bad guys...not that that bothered me. This movie did a better job of setting up action scenes so as to not appear so random. The pace is kinetic enough that there's never any down time, something that the first two entries were somewhat guilty of. Yes Madam started off well, but petered out in the middle when it dedicated its screen time to the supporting comic relief. Royal Warriors did the same thing, but in that case, the scenes of Meng Hoi, Tsui Hark, and John Sham were replaced with scenes of Michael Wong (I understand that this makes certain people shudder). While Cynthia Khan does have to share screen time with David Wu and Elvina Wong, the action never flags and Cynthia isn't treated like a supporting character in this one.

The films' treatment of Inspector Yeung is rather interesting. Other than Royal Warriors, I've never seen a whole lot of personality in the character. She's likeable and pretty and fun to watch, but for being in 7 movies, I don't think her character was really all that deep. She's the main character, but she's more like a constant. She's a constant force in her universe: the force which will stand by law and order in all situations...until the end of the movie. By the end of the movie, Inspector Yeung is always taking the law into her own hands. Being a movie, I don't have a problem with that, but that's mostly because it always leads to some really good fight scenes.

Speaking of fight scenes (or action sequences on the whole), there are a lot. The action scenes are varied, which is good since there are a lot. There's a pretty good balance between martial arts/hand-to-hand combat, gunplay, stunt work, and chase scenes. The fight scenes are directed by Chris Lee, whom I'm not familiar with. He does a pretty good with the choreography, although he's definitely not one of the Yuen clan. In addition to some pretty good hand-to-hand combat, Chris mixes things up with some use of objects including shovels, sledge hammers, metal bars (used as escrima sticks), live electrical wires, harpoon guns(!), a cane sword, samurai swords, and even a cobra(!!).

And while not as elaborate as your average Jackie Chan movie or even Blonde Fury, there is some environment-based stuntwork. Cynthia and company fight on trucks, throw each other on furniture and through glass, fight around staircases, etc. When the action shifts to some sort of industrial setting, you best believe that the players will be using their surroundings to their advantage.

Cynthia gets involved in about seven set-pieces. Luckily for her (and for her fans), she dominates all of her scenes and doesn't really have to share the action scenes with other protagonists like she did in the last movie. This is Cynthia's movie and she acquits herself quite well. She doesn't quite look as good as she did under direction of the Yuen clan, but that's understandable considering that Sammo Hung and Lau Kar-Leung are the only people who could do a better job than the Yuen clan. Nonetheless, this movie is an excellent showcase for Cynthia's talents and what it lacks in weight it makes up for in volume.

I might mention the presence of Billy Chow in this film. As usual, he has a supporting role as one of the main villain's right-hand men. I have mentioned before that Billy Chow is one of the only perpetual movie villains who came close to matching Hwang Jang Lee's level of authority (Bolo Yeung was another). Billy Chow has always given an honest performance in any movie he appeared in. Heck, if you ask me, he stole the show from Jackie Chan at the end of Miracles...although most Jackie Chan opponents tend to do that. The point is that Billy Chow is always a good choice for a movie villain and I'll venture to say that any movie he appears in moves up a notch or two just for his presence.

There are about four stand-out action sequences in this movie. The first is the opening fight sequence that I already mentioned. Cynthia's fight with Chris Lee is also quite good. This fight is almost immediately followed by an extended duel with Billy Chow which unsurprisingly, is very good. For those of you who love to see two girls going at it with unbridled fury, look no further. The finale sees Cynthia Khan taking on Kim Maree Penn. They start off fighting with fisticuffs and throwing each other through what appears to be real glass, and then they pick up katana swords and start wailing on each other in such a way that I wonder if this fight was a partial inspiration for Kill Bill (note: during the sword fight, you can see snow following, which I believe was also a part of Uma Thurman's duel with Lucy Liu).

A note on Kim Maree Penn. You may not know who she is, and for that you are justified. She's not all that well-known in movie circles and has only appeared in a handful of B-movies. She's a blonde-haired gwailo, although I don't know if she's British or Australian or what. What she is, however, is very talented. I've seen her in some three movies already. I think this was one of her first movies. She does a pretty good job in this movie. However, her best movie performance was The Death Games which also stars Terry "Riki-Oh" Fan and (surprise, surprise) Billy Chow. 

I've mainly talked about the movie's action scenes, which for a movie that is non-stop action, is the most important part. The acting and plot are serviceable; nothing horrible but nothing spectacular. The cast is excellent. David Wu and Lo Lieh join Cynthia Khan for the second time (they starred together in Tiger Cage II the same year). Billy Chow is good as always and Kim Maree Penn makes a formidable early appearance.

The most negative aspect of this film, at least from my point of view, is the violence. This is a very brutal film, although probably a bit less brutal than ITLOD 3. Almost anyone who dies gets it in a violent way. And there's poor David Wu, he gets shot, stabbed, stabbed some more, and by the time he makes it to the end, he still gets manhandled by Ms. Penn.

The strong violence is certainly likely to be a deterrent to sensitive viewers. If you want to watch a more "viewer-friendly" Cynthia Khan movie, watch Super Lady Cop. Otherwise, you may want to check this out. It's the kind of action-packed, stunt-filled, wall-to-wall fight movie that Hong Kong no longer produces.

Nevertheless, because of this movie and ITLOD 4, I feel that I must dub Cynthia Khan one of the true queens of action cinema. Cynthia Khan...or Yang, I salute you.