Operation Pink Squad (1988)

Operation Pink Squad (1988)
Chinese Title: 霸王女福星
Translation: Overlord Female Lucky Star

 

Starring: Sandra Ng, Ann Bridgewater, Elsie Chan, Suki Kwan, Tan Lap-Man, Wu Fung, Lowell Lo, Billy Lau, Yuen Cheung-Yan, Melanie Barter, cameos by Ricky Hui and Jeff Falcon
Director: Jeff Lau
Action Director: Yuen Cheung-Yan

 

The Girls n’ Guns (sub)-genre was already on firm footing by the time Operation Pink Squad came out at the tail end of 1988. The classic Yes, Madam! had made waves three years earlier, followed by two sequels: Royal Warriors and In the Line of Duty III, the latter coming out the same year as this one. Taiwan had already joined the party with Book of Heroes, while Moon Lee and Elaine Lui had already headlined two Angel movies. Moreover, American actress Cynthia Rothrock had memorable turns in Righting Wrongs and the Jackie Chan-produced The Inspector Wears Skirts, which predated Operation Pink Squad by several months.

Operation Pink Squad is the brainchild of writer-director-producer Jeff Lau, one of the more eccentric names in Hong Kong cinema. He tends to focus in the comedy genre, and his films are very…odd. He’s not as crass as his contemporary Wong Jing, but his work is arguably less accessible to foreign audiences than Wong’s stuff is. Lau started off his career as an actor and producer, making films in different genres, some of which are lauded today, like The Imp and Coolie Killer. In 1987, Lau started writing and directing his own films, often working with the likes of action director Corey Yuen. He started off with the Haunted Cop Shop movies, and Operation Pink Squad is also one of his earlier efforts.

Plastic Flower (Ann Bridgewater, who was in The Inspector Wears Skirts) and Ng Siu-Mui (Sandra Ng, also of the TIWS series) are pair of policewomen working in the Pink Squad Division. The movie opens with them busting a corrupt cop who’s hounding a crime boss (Wai Ching, of Tragic Hero and Haunted Cop Shop) for more money. Just as the Pink Squad is about to arrest him, an assassin (Blonde Fury’s Jeff Falcon) shows up and kills him. The assassin scuffles with Plastic Flower before getting killed himself.

The Pink Squad is disbanded and the girls, who also include Vampire Buster’s Elsie Chan and Suki Kwan (of City Cops and a dozen New Option movies), are sent to work with a regular unit. Unfortunately for them, their new boss (Wu Fung, of Robotrix and The Inspector Wears Skirts IV) and his subordinates are a bunch of awful misogynists. They want to get the girls fired so that they don’t have to work with icky girls[1], so they decide to have them bust a drug dealer, played by Yuen Cheung-Yan (the film’s fight choreographer). To Inspector Wu’s chagrin, the girls successfully bust the guy and his men, despite initiating what appeared to be a three-way shootout between the girls, a male contingent of cops, and the bad guys.

With that plan having failed, Inspector Wu decides to put the girls on a stake-out case to watch over a blind man, Piu (Cat. III actor Tan Lap-Man, who made films like Reincarnation of Golden Lotus and Erotic Ghost Story). He was involved in a car accident while transporting a stolen diamond and is now blind. The police want to find the diamond and suspect that his former partner and lover (whom I think is played by Melanie Barter) will contact him soon about it. The thing is, Ng Siu-Mui falls head over heels in love with Piu and starts sneaking out of the house to spend time with him, which is against regulations. So, Plastic Flower has to watch out for her partner and make sure she doesn’t get caught, which would probably result in all the girls getting fired.

There are a lot of characters in this movie, but once we enter the third act, it mainly focuses on Ng Siu-Mui’s relationship with Piu and Plastic Flower’s efforts to cover for her friend. The other two girls on the team are practically forgotten about after the drug bust sequence, except for a bizarre sequence in which the male officers on the stake-out (including Rosa’s Lowell Lo) hire Ricky Hui to sexually assault them. Policemen hiring someone to do something heinous as that in the name of comedy is already weird, but the sequence ends with Ricky Hui making out with a camcorder! There is also the germ of a subplot of Lowell Lo’s character falling in love with Plastic Flower, but that story element goes absolutely nowhere.

Much of the comedy is rather broad, making it more along the lines of the Lucky Stars films than Royal Warriors and ITLOD 3. The showstopper is a scene early on when Sandra Ng sneaks into Piu’s house and gets trapped under the table while he plays rock music…with the speakers set up right next to her head. If that wasn’t bad enough, the vibrations caused by the guitar playing push a variety of objects to the edge of the table wear Ng’s head is, including a carving knife(!). The whole sequence is so surreal that it’s pretty entertaining. Despite the goofy comedy that permeates much of the film, there are some serious moments, including a borderline tragic finale set at the airport.

Sadly, there isn’t any action at the finale, which is more emotional (and maybe even suspenseful, if you aren’t just watching to see girls punch people) than anything else. Fighting is relegated to about three short sequences. The first fight pits Ann Bridgewater against talented gwailo hard-hitter Jeff Falcon, but it’s pretty short. Bridgewater also faces off in any even briefer scuffle with Yuen Cheung-Yan, who actually bests her before complaining that he’s too old for long fights. Both of those fights look like they have good choreography, but the VHS-transfer quality of the DVD I have mixed with the limited lighting in scene itself result in the action being hard to see.

The big fight has Bridgewater in a goofy disguise fighting off a bunch of policemen at a playground. Her (and her stunt double) do some really good kicks and some flashy moves in this scene. It’s definitely the highlight of the movie. I wish there had been a big fight between Bridgewater and the Caucasian actress playing Piu’s vengeful ex-girlfriend, but the latter is dispatched offscreen in an offhand manner. Boo.

I suppose there are HK cinephiles out there that consider themselves to be Sandra Ng fans or Jeff Lau fans. Those people will probably get a lot more out of this than die-hard Girls n’ Guns fans, who will decry the lack of action, including the absence of a big fight/shoot-out finale. Those fans would be better off sticking with the works of Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima and Cynthia Rothrock than Operation Pink Squad. Jeff Lau followed this up with Operation Pink Squad 2 the next year, but strayed from the Girls n’ Guns template to make a baffling horror film instead. Hong Kong. Go figure.

---

[1] - One of the running jokes is that one of the sexist inspectors, played by Lo Hung, is always suggesting sicc’ing the Bamboo Gang on the girls whenever they they’re trying to figure out what to do in a given situation.