Killer Li Mo (2017)

Killer Li Mo (2017)
Chinese Title: 殺手離沫
Translation: Killer Li Mo

 

Starring: Liu Naping, Waise Lee, Sky Qing Tianli, Zheng Min, Shannon, Wei Yan
Director: Feng Baoning
Action Director: Ni Haifeng

 

Killer Li Mo is in someways a throwback to the Girls n' Guns films of the 1990s, right down to casting Waise Lee (Tough Beauty and Sloppy Slop and Angel on Fire) in an integral supporting role. We do not get very many Girls n' Guns throwbacks anymore, and many of the ones we do get tend to take the Hollywood route of focusing on the girls' sexuality instead of fighting prowess. This one sort of finds the middle ground between the Cop Shop Babes sort of film and the classics starring the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Khan, Yukari Oshima and Moon Lee. Actress Liu Naping is fairly attractive, and spends most of the film decked in tight black leather, but the camera never fetishizes her the way it would in other movies. She may be purty, but she is in it to kick some major butt.

The story is fairly simple. Li Mo (Liu Naping) is the daughter of a local crime boss. Her dad is marked to death by a rival, who send his two enforcers (Sword Dynasty's Zheng Min and a Caucasian actress going by the name "Shannon") to stab him to death. Li Mo is also attacked by some goons, but her martial arts skills are enough to get her out of the bind. She arrives home too late to save her dad, though. She is rescued by Yuan Ling (Waise Lee), the rival's right-hand man. Yuan Ling takes her into the countryside and trains her in the martial arts (well, even moreso) so she can get her revenge. Three years later, she starts offing the rival's men one by one until she gets to the heart of his drug-refining operation. She also befriends a local country doctor/teacher (Taiwanese actor Sky Qing), plus there are two ineffectual cops who are following her trail of dead bodies.

The action is handled by Ni Haifeng, whom I assume is a member of Yuen Woo-Ping's Stuntman team. He got his start doing stuntwork on The Forbidden Kingdom and has worked on several films by both Yuen Woo-Ping and his protégé, DeeDee Ku Huen-Chiu. Those include The Grandmaster; True Legend; and The Four. Ni Haifeng is listed as Assistant Action Director for the second Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film and this is his second credited gig as action director. I'm not a huge fan of DeeDee Ku's solo work, but I am glad that Yuen Sifu and DeeDee are preparing new action directors for the next generation of action films.

There are a handful of fight sequences spread evenly throughout the movie. We open with a brief fight between Li Mo and a pair of would-be killers. While the camera is sometimes placed too far away, the choreography itself is pretty decent and despite Liu Naping's limited skills, the action is not over-edited. After the opening credits, there is a fight between Li Mo and a medium-level drug dealer, which quickly becomes a sword fight--her signature weapons are a pair of wakizashi blades. The choreography is a little bit better here than in the first fight, possibly to signify her growth as a fighter. Later on, she has a sword fight with Shannon, who wields a katana. The choreography is solid, although occasionally the filmmakers film it from too far away. The best fighter in the cast is Zheng Min, who gets a solo fight against a bunch of drug dealers and uses a lot of judo and arm locks against them. His moves are the crispest and fastest of the cast.

The finale is an extended action sequence at the villain's jungle hideout/drug lab. It starts off with Li Mo sneaking around, taking out individual guards. She then faces off with about five assailants simultaneously, completely with complex choreography and long cuts. There is a bit of gunplay as she takes out the main villain's closest guards. When she runs out of bullets, she fights several more men with her bare hands, and the choreography continues to be solid. The best choreography is saved for her one-on-one duel with Zheng Min, in which the two go at it without any blades or guns. Liu Naping's flashier moves are wire-assisted, but are filmed and edited in ways to make them look more natural. There is some nice looking ground fighting, take downs, leg locks, etc. during this sequence. Sadly, Li Mo dominates the fight so much that there isn't much in the way of actual suspense.

The film was obviously made on a low-budget. If the Thailand setting wasn't enough, than viewers will surely not the lack of extras in most of the scenes. Gunplay and explosions are minimal--compare with films like Angel II, which were full of high-octane carnage. There is one howler (at least for me) in the action: when Li Mo defeats Zheng Min's character, she kicks him into a stack of boxes filled with drugs, one of which she'd already stashed four grenades in. She throws a fifth grenade and bolts. The resulting explosion takes out the building, although the structure is curiously still standing. We then see her inspecting Zheng Min's body...what body? If five grenades go off simultaneously right next to you, there will be no body. The concussive force of five explosions would have relieved you of your body.  There is no way that guy would be lying on the ground with his clothes intact and some burns on his face. But that said, you could easily do worse than Killer Li Mo. If you keep your expectations in check and are easily amused by cute girls getting into kung fu fights, you'll probably get something out of this film.