Three more short Girls n' Guns Reviews

China Heat (1992)
aka: Paid in Blood
Chinese Title: 中華警花
Translation: Chinese Police Flower

Starring: Sibelle Hu, Michael Depasquale Jr., Allen Lan, Sherry Hon Wing-Ching, Meng Xiang-Li, cameos by Sophia Crawford and Mark Houghton
Director: William Cheung Kei, Yang Yang
Action Directors: Allen Lan, Lee Chi-Ping, Ku Gaai-Lam, Chui Ji-Kei, Wong Koon-Fat

I remember this being released on VHS by Tai Seng in the late 90s as part of the "China Heat" series, alongside Spider Force and Hard to Die. This is generally placed in the lower end of the Girls n' Guns bell curve, and I can generally see why. I didn't find it particularly inept--save the gunfights, which were terribly staged--but it has no depth to it. There's no heart here. No reason to care for anyone in this movie.

The movie starts off with Sibelle Hu and her female commando team storming a plane held hostage by terrorists and killing all the bad guys...with reckless disregard for the lives of the passengers. Later, Madame Hu and her team of dozens of gun-toting women in military fatigues interrupt a drug deal, which results in a huge firefight. The main drug dealer, Harry (Allen Lan), gets away and flees to the States. There, he becomes part of a crime family led by a German guy. But he's quickly arrested and is to be extradited back to China. 

Madame Hu sends three of her agents--Mandy (Meng Xiang-Li), Yolanda (Sherry Hon), and some guy--to escort Harry back to China. On the way to the airport, the police cars are ambushed by Harry's men and the Chinese police guy is seriously injured. Meanwhile, Madame Hu shows up to give her team support. Chinese police guy and Mandy are both kidnapped, while Madame Hu and American police officer Michael (Despasquale, who played Loren Avedon's brother in King of the Kickboxers) are attacked by German guy's goons. Michael is taken off the case and turns in his badge in defiance.

Yolanda has a warehouse fight with Harry's goons and is captured herself. She escapes, but her two partners don't: nameless guy is killed. Yolanda, Madame Hu, and Michael team up to storm German guy's mansion and find out where Harry's drug deal is going to be. They rescue Mandy and together they storm the port for a final showdown.

There isn't as much fighting as there should be. Most of the fights end before they even begin. The best fight is Sherry Hon's fight at the warehouse. Later, when the three go to rescue Mandy, Mark Houghton and Sophia Crawford show up as guards. Crawford throws down with Sibelle Hu and her stunt double, while Houghton fights Despasquale. There's some decent choreography here, but I expected better. The finale starts off with lots of gunplay that makes you pine for the John Woo-lite that was The Replacement Killers. It then branches off into three fights: the totally useless Meng Xiang-Li against Harry's third-in-command; Sherry Hon vs. Harry's second-in-command; and Despasquale vs. Allen Lan. That last fight isn't bad; there's some good choreography early on, but is broken up by too much running. It's more interesting to see Allen Lan (who helped choreograph such films as The Death Games; Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger; and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate) fighting in front of the camera. He's actually quite good. But there's not enough of the good stuff to warrant a recommendation to anyone beyond the staunchest of HK action completists.

  

Beauty Investigator (1992) 
Chinese Title: 妙探雙嬌
Translation: Wonderful Detective Pair Jiao

Starring: Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Yukari Oshima, Gam Chi-Gei, Choi Jeong-Il, Sophia M. Crawford, Melvin Wong Gam-San, Billy Ching Sau-Yat, Peter Yang Kwan, Billy Chow Bei-Lei, Shum Wai, Chung Fat, Tai Bo
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Jackson Ng Yuk-Sue

 I divide the Girls 'n Guns genre into three eras: the Golden Age (1985-1990); the Middle Period (1991-1994) and the decline (1995 and onward). This one was made during the middle period (by our favorite independent kung fu director, Lee Tso Nam), when the films weren't even the moderate successes that the earlier films had been, but apparently made enough in the Pan-Asian Market to warrant decent budgets before things got *really* bad and cheap. Moon Lee is once again a cop who finds herself going undercover at a nightclub, this time as a hostess in order to bring down a sex maniac killer preying on hostesses. That eventually becomes a pointless subplot once Moon Lee and her partner set their sights on the club owner (superkicker Chuí Ying Jat), who has hired a Japanese hitwoman (Yukari Oshima) to off the other members (including Chung Fat) of his gun-running gang in order to be the Big Banana.

The movie was more of a comedy than Killer Angels was, which is best demonstrated by a chase sequence where Moon Lee and her partner are chasing down a motorcycle-riding Yukari Oshima. Moon Lee is firing her never-needs-to-be-reloaded shotgun at Oshima, only that she misses every shot. However, each blast from the gun is able to make cars explode and other metal objects catch fire! The fighting was choreographed by Jackson Ng (who worked on the One-Armed Swordsman remake What Price Survival and did co-choreographing duties on Magic Crystal) and it's pretty good. Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima aren't as flashy in their moves as they had been in the 80s, but they're fun to watch. Billy Chow shows up as a Japanese gangster in the end and throws some of his reliable kicks. Chuí Ying-Jat really steals the show with his flexible kicking in the fight. Sophia Crawford, stunt double for the Pink Ranger and Buffy, also appears as the villain's wife (in the English dub, she even gets a gratuitous shower scene!). It's a fun movie to be sure, but not quite the classic I was hoping for considering the cast.

 

Ultracop 2000 (1992) 
Chinese Title: 宇宙狙擊
Translation: Cosmic Sniper

Starring: Yukari Oshima, Phillip Ko Fei, Marcus Fok Wing-Fu, Melvin Wong Gam-San, Gabriel Romulo, Monsour Del Rosario, Bernardo Bernardo
Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Action Director: Phillip Ko Fei

Generally considered one of these absolute worst films in the Girls n' Guns genre...and I'm inclined to agree. Man, this movie sucked. A pair of aliens--one good, one bad--arrive on Earth. The latter, Zorbac (Lethal Panther 2's Gabriel Romulo), starts seeking out humans to consume (he uses magical Martian powers to suck out his victims' blood and spinal cords through cartoonish green optical effects). The former, a Martian policeman, is on the hunt and has wire-assisted sword and gun battles with Zorbac all over Manilla.

Meanwhile, a trio of policemen--Betty (Yukari Oshima), Tony (Monsour del Rosario, of The Trigonal: Fight for Justice), and Philip Ko Fei--are on the tail of Wong (Melvin Wong, of Righting Wrongs), a notorious arms dealer. Ko Fei is injured during a fake drug deal. Betty and Tony get involved with the Zorbac case when they are called to diffuse a suicide attempt by a gay guy (Bernardo Bernardo) who has just contracted HIV. We also learn that Zorbac can't absorb the life fluids from an HIV-positive person. Gunfights, swordfights, and all sorts of unfunny tomfoolery ensue.

Yeah, this movie feels like a collection of random scenes and homophobic vignettes that were probably unfunny in 1992. Action-wise, there is little to recommend the movie. Yukari Oshima's early fight scenes are short and not filmed well. She gets more action at the climax, fighting against mind-controlled baddies and Zorbac himself. Unfortunately, she is wired up as much as a then-contemporary wuxia film. Philip Ko Fei gets shot in an early gunfight and spends much of the film recovering in a hospital. He does do some nice work with a dao (broadsword) at the very end. There is a decent car chase/gunfight that ends with a silly domino-esque succession of exploding cars. There is also a budget reenactment of the warehouse raid from Hard Boiled, released that same year. But that said, the movie is just really stupid for its entire 80-minute running time. And instead of pulling the "it was all a dream" card, the movie turns out to be a visualization of a character reading a bad pulp novel.