Lethal Panther (1991)

Lethal Panther (1991)
Chinese Title: 驚天龍虎豹
Translation: Shocking Dragon, Tiger and Leopard

Starring: Sibelle Hu, Maria Jo, Yoko Miyamoto, Lawrence Ng, Ken Low, Alex Fong, Mak Wai-Cheung, Wong Won-Choi, Sylvia Sanches
Director: Godfrey Ho
Action Directors: Mak Wai-Cheung, Tony Tam, Sam Feng-San

Once in a while, you come across a movie that could be described as "come for the fights, stay for the flesh." Stoner is one. The Association is another. Lethal Panther is a third. It is certainly the most pornographic Girls n' Guns movie I've yet come across--not that I've seen that many. A few have moments of T&A, but this film takes it to new levels. It is the most flesh-filled MA actioner I've seen since Bruce Le's Challenge of the Tiger.

The first three scenes, which make up the opening ten minutes of the film, are certain to catch a viewer's attention. The three lead actresses are introduced separately: Sibelle Hu has a fight with a petty criminal purchasing counterfeit money; Yoko Miyamoto engages in graphic sex with a guy before thrusting (heh) a large knife into his chest; and Maria Jo walks into a private room at a restaurant, A Better Tomorrow style, and mows down everyone with twin Uzis. What a way to introduce your film's characters!

Sibelle Hu plays Betty Lee, a Chinese-American CIA agent who has tracked a counterfeit ring to its HQ in Manila, Philippines. Yoko Miyamoto, whose character is named Miyamoto, is a Japanese assassin who seems to have mastered the art of playing the honeypot.  Maria Jo plays Yuen Ling, a Vietnamese hitwoman plagued by memories of guerilla warfare in 'Nam (although considering her age, I'm sure the Vietnam War was long over when she got into the business, so she might have been a mercenary in the Golden Triangle). Miyamoto and Yuen Ling receive orders to eliminate the same target: the head of the counterfeiting ring that Betty is trying to bust. Afterward, they are ordered to eliminate each other. The client? Bill (Lawrence Ng), the sneaky adoptive nephew of the dead crime boss.

Let's address the multiple elephants in the room. First: the film was directed by Godfrey Ho. Thankfully, Lethal Panther is not a cut 'n splice film. It has a story; well-defined characters in Miyamoto and Yuen Ling; moments of character development; palpable tragedy; and a beginning, middle, and end. It is probably one of the best Godfrey Ho movies out there. It's not perfect, mainly because Sibelle Hu disappears from the story during the second half and shows up at the end after all the dust has settled.

The other elephant is the sheer quantity (and quality) of sex and nudity in this movie. I counted seven pairs of breasts, three sacred bushes, two explicit sex sequences, one sequence of manual stimulation, one scene of implied gun barrel buggery, one strip club scene, and a kink involving a condom with a hole in it. 

There is a lot of action, choreographed by Mak Wai-Cheung (the Eagle claw bandit from Legend of the Wolf); Tony Tam, who often choreographed Donnie Yen in the 1990s; and Sam Feng-San, whose long credits include the Sex and Chopsticks films and assistant action direction on a number of Stephen Chow movies. The fisticuffs are limited. Sibelle Hu fights a random guy in the first scene. She throws down briefly with both Maria Jo and Steve Tartalia (Tiger from Once Upon a Time in China) as well. There is also a shoot-out at a prostitute's (Sylvia Sanches) home where Miyamoto and Yuen Ling start fighting as well. The fights will please most fans of 80s and early 90s action, although if you come solely for the bootage, you'll be disappointed.

The vast majority of the action sequences are well-mounted and expertly-filmed gunplay sequences. Having watched a number of cheap Girls n' Guns films in the past week, this film easily beats the rest and truly does the "Guns" part justice. The last half house has the really good gunfight at the aforementioned call girl's abode, followed by a raid on Yuen Ling's temporary residence led by Alex Fong, who plays Bill's chief enforcer. It comes to a head at an abandoned building where the surviving protagonists interrupt a drug deal with M-16s, Uzis, and RPGs. A gunfight at a store during the first half, filmed mainly in slow motion, also hit me in the John Woo's.

This is one of the purest interpretations of "Girls n' Guns": there are lots of girls (many of whom get naked), some of whom wield guns, to powerful effect.