The Executioners (1993)

The Executioners (1993)
aka Heroic Trio 2
Chinese Title: 現代豪俠傳
Translation: Modern Heroes

 

Starring: Anita Mui, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, Damian Lau, Anthony Wong, Lau Ching-Wang, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Director: Johnnie To, Tony Ching Siu-Tung
Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

For many HK cinephiles, especially those of us who got on the boat during the mid-late 1990s, the first movie exemplified many of the best aspects of Hong Kong fantasy filmmaking. It was a gonzo superhero fantasy where the protagonists were no-nonsense women (something Hollywood couldn’t pull off right until almost a quarter of a decade later), full of imaginative and over-the-top action sequences, bizarre special FX sequences, and just a lot of fun all around. It wasn’t so much a martial arts movie, despite having Michelle Yeoh in the cast, as it was just a crazy comic book movie that just happened to have no comic to reference. I’m sure some of you caught this on TNT around the fall of 1997 like I did, which just helped to cement my love for the genre. That was The Heroic Trio.

The Executioners is a different story.

Set in the same world, but tonally different from its predecessor, we open with stock footage of a nuclear explosion. We learn that the nuclear holocaust did indeed occur, and the radiation has since tainted China/the city’s water supply. A purification system has been developed by the EEEEVIL Mr. Kim (Anthony Wong, playing a different role than he did in the last film), who just keeps driving up prices of water every time people like Thief Catcher (a returning Maggie Cheung) raid one of his trucks so as to sell the water on the black market. 

The growing civil unrest at the ever-increasing water prices has government regularly sending people into the radiation-scarred wilderness to find clean water, but those expeditions inevitably end in death, which just makes public relations even worse. But that’s what Mr. Kim wants, and he has hired a Christ-like figure, Chong Hon (Takeshi Kaneshiro), to rally up the masses against the government for sending people to needlessly die. The military, led by a corrupt general, hires Inspector Lau (a returning Damian Lau) to assassinate Chong Hon before he can instigate a full-on rebellion. When a second assassin kills Chong Hon at the capitol building on the eve of a negotiations meeting with the president, it all goes to hell.

The general places the blame on Lau and murders him in front of his wife and daughter at a train station. His wife, Tung aka Wonder Woman (a returning Anita Mui), is thrown in prison as a rebel at the general’s orders. The general stages a coup and almost kills the president. The Vice President (Eddie Ko Hung) sends Thief Catcher to find water, which she accepts as a way of redeeming herself for bringing the assassin into the capitol and setting all of this in motion. He sends Ching Ching (a returning Michelle Yeoh, although she’s no longer invisible) on a mission to take the President’s double through enemy territory in order to buy time for Thief Catcher. And Mr. Kim is lurking in the background, waiting for the coup to finish so he can install himself as the President, solve the water “problem”, and become the beloved savior of the people.

The first movie was a fun action-fantasy film with some poignant and tragic moments amidst the gunplay, martial arts and flying motorcycles. This is a bleak, dark and ultimately depressing post-apocalyptic action film that has but a few moments of off-the-wall action amidst the constant tragedy. Dozens and dozens of innocent people die in this movie, which is never fun, especially when the point is to show just how bleak things are. I mean, Tung gets to see every person she shares a cell with die of poisoning, after which she forces herself to kill a rat and drink its blood in order to not die of starvation. Happy funville, folks! And how about the scene in the police station where the SWAT team members are talking about how they’ve worked for three full days without a break and have to spend Christmas away from their families, only for a woman to enter the hall and blow them all away with an M-16 before she blows her own brains out because her husband died on a water-finding mission? Most important supporting characters, even those who are sympathetic, get killed and even one of the main characters, dies a gory, ignominious death at the hands of Mr. Kim in the end.

I suppose I’d be more forgiving of this if the action was good. But Ching Siu-Tung really had his hands full in 1993. That year saw him co-directing this and Heroic Trio; directing and choreographing The East is Red; and doing action directing on Holy Weapon; Butterfly and Sword; Flying Daggers; and Future Cops. I’m guessing it was that fact that led him to focus most of the action around guns, with the lion’s share of the martial arts being saved for the final 30 minutes. And even then, the fights are really short and not as satisfying as they should be. There’s some nice wirework when Wonder Woman finally squares off with the General in balls-to-the-wall swordfight, and the when the Heroic Trio take on Mr. Kim, we get one of those crazy HK fights involving car parts, church pews, chandeliers, grenades, and whatnot. But even that sort of zaniness is offset by the graphic killing of a major character.

I bought the Brazilian DVD of this to be able to revisit the old times and support the local DVD industry, but I really don’t feel like making that journey again. Maybe in another 15 years or so.