Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Angel (1987)

Angel (1987)
aka: Iron Angels; Fighting Madam; Midnight Angels[1]
Chinese Title: 天使行動
Translation: Angel Action

 




Starring: Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, Hideki Saijo, Yukari Oshima, David Chiang Da-Wei, Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Hwang Jang-Lee, Peter Yang Kwan
Director: Teresa Woo San
Action Director: Tony Leung Siu-Hung

 

I don’t know why, but I was often reluctant to rent martial arts movies that didn’t hold a specific interest for me. I think I missed out on a lot of opportunities to enjoy the Classics because I was too busy re-renting John Woo’s Heroic Bloodshed films or The Undaunted Wudang, instead of branching out and taking chances. When I started my own review site back in 2001—a carbon-copy of this place, but for American MA films—I did start watching a few more American films than I was wont to try, but that’s it. It’s only the last decade or so—thanks to Youtube—that I’ve really made a point of “diversifying my bonds,” to quote the GZA.

Once in a while, I did try something new. The Girls n’ Guns genre in Thomas Weisser’s notorious Asian Cult Cinema got talked up enough that I ended up renting this movie from Hollywood video one Saturday afternoon on a lark. I ended up liking it a lot. So much, in fact, that the next time I found it for sale at Blockbuster Video, I just upped and bought it. It’s a fun little action-adventure, even if there are better examples of Fighting Femme Fatale movies out there.

The movie opens with a Thai military raid (led by a Pan-Asian coalition of law enforcement officers) on some poppy fields in the Golden Triangle—a region around the Mekong River that produces much of the world’s supply of heroin. The raid is successful and many of the armed drug planters are killed, and the fields are burned. This doesn’t sit well with The Syndicate, the consortium of criminal organizations responsible for distributing the drug throughout Asia. Although the man in charge (Peter Yang Kwan, of The Golden Lotus and Tragic Hero) wants to cut his losses and move forward, one of his subordinates, Madame Su (Yukari Oshima, of Ultracop 2000 and Book of Heroes) is more interested in revenge. She has one of her computer-savvy men go into the police station, sneak into the computer mainframe, and find out who was part of the coalition.

About 14 or so dead bodies later, the Hong Kong police—where some of the officials were murdered—have no clue as to what’s going on. The police chief receives a visit from American DEA agent Fong (Alex Fong, of Beauty Evil Rose and One Nite in Mongkok), who suggests that they employ the services of  the private detective agency The Iron Angels. The Americans will even foot the bills, so long as the HK police give the Angels permission and leeway to conduct an investigation. The chief agrees, and he and Fong contact John (David Chiang, of The Duel and Shaolin Mantis) to get him up to speed on the case. Since this is a bigger case than most, John brings in three of this “angels” to help with the investigation: Mona (Moon Lee, of Killer Angels and Mission of Justice), Helen (Elaine Lui, of Stone Age Warriors and Bride with White Hair) and Kenji (Japanese pop singer Hideki Saijo).

Kenji starts out staking out the police department—just how inept are HK police that they need an outsider to keep tabs on their own building?—while Mona and Helen sneak into a nightclub owned by one of the Syndicate members looking for information. Mona and Helen find information linking one of the heads of the Nipo-Daijo company, Chang Lung (Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee, of Duel of the Ultimate Weapons and Eagle vs Silver Fox), to the syndicate. Meanwhile, Kenji is able to snuff out the spy and uses a trash compactor to scare him into squealing. The Angels then sneak into the Nipo-Daijo headquarters in Hong Kong and discover the location of the next drug drop-off. After a clever ruse involving Kenji and Mona making out in a car not far from the scene of the drug delivery, they are able to steal a bag of heroin and get away unscathed.

By this point, Madame Su has already murdered the head of the Syndicate and taken power for herself. She contacts John, asking him to make an offer for her to buy back her heroin. He tells her to stop the revenge killings and release those law enforcement officials whom she’s captured—and routinely tortures for shits and giggles—but she balks at the idea of…well…killing less people. So the Angels track her down to the estate where she keeps the hostages and tries to free them. Only that during their escape, Fong and Helen are left behind. Now things are really going to heat up…

Although I’d call Angel a non-stop action movie, it is not a non-stop fighting film, and that may turn some viewers off. The first half does have a few brief displays of martial arts—including an all-too short scuffle between Yukari Oshima and Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee—most of the action is a mixture of Rambo-style gunbattles (the initial raid); spy-and-detective sequences; and tense cat-and-mouse car chases. Only in the second half does the action ramp up with more martial arts sequences and a John Woo-esque bullet ballet set piece. For the most part, however, writer-director Teresa Woo (who also wrote and produced the sequels, plus College Kickboxers) keeps the pace moving a fairly fast clip.

Although not her first role—she’d been acting as early as 1983—Moon Lee puts in her first action performance here, which would continue up through the late 1990s or so. Lee was trained to sing and dance, but was trained in the martial arts by actor-director Tsui Siu-Ming prior to making Angel. She’s a natural in this role and plays it with the right about of glamour and gravitas. She even has some romantic moments with lead hearthrob Hideki Saijo. It’s almost lamentable that many of her other action roles required her to make so many pouty faces (Inspector Wears Skirts IV, I’m looking at you).

Elaine Lui plays her foil as Helen, the flighty-and-flirty member of the trio, with a fixation for fashion and a talent for technology. Her character is very reminiscent of Elsa Yang’s flirtacious character from Book of Heroes, although Helen is more of a tease. Lui does have a few moments of hand-to-hand combat, although that’s not supposed to be her character’s specialty here. For better action from her, try The Innocent Interloper and Stone Age Warriors instead. Lui has stated in interviews—see Top Fighter 2: Deadly China Dolls—that she was resentful of getting pigeon-holed into action roles, even though she was honestly good at it, even when playing the villain.

Capping off the trio is Hideki Saijo as Kenji. Kenji’s “alter-ego” is a karate instructor at the Shaolin Temple in Japan. I’m not sure if Japan
has a Shaolin Temple, but the karate style Shorin-Ryu is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Kanji for Shaolin, so that might be related somehow. He actually ends up being the most able of the three, which is interesting, considering this film was written, produced and directed by a woman. His fights, however, involve more editing than those of Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima, so it’s clear that he wasn’t a skilled fighter. Thankfully, the final fight is given to the girls, while he just gets a second (and brief) rematch with Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee.

Stealing the show, however, is Yukari Oshima as the sadistic villainess Madame Su. She relishes this role as the ruthless drug kingpin who enjoys nothing more than torturing and killing people. Her natural beauty and althetic prowess go in concert with each other in creating one of the great villains of the Girls n’ Guns genre, and 80s Hong Kong action as a whole. She’s cruel enough lick up her victims’ blood as they lay bleeding from vicious whippings; she’s seductive enough to use her sexuality against her opponents as she sees fit; and when it’s time to throw down, it doesn’t matter how many opponents she faces, she’ll take them all on.

The action was staged by Tony Leung Siu-Hung, on something of a high after his bravura job on
Magic Crystal. There are a few short fights here and there, but the pièce de résistance comes at the end when Moon Lee and Elaine Lui storm the Nipo-Daijo warehouse, taking on a room full of attackers with a mixture of 007-esque gadgetry and old fasioned kung fu. Moon Lee goes nuts with a steel bar used as a staff, while Lui hurls bombs disguised as dress buttons. It finally ends a brutal fight between Moon and Yukari where the latter justs pounds the snot out of the former with her punches while demonstrating her mean axe kick skills. Moon does have a few acrobatic skills at her disposal, and Yukari is ultimately dispatched in the bloodiest way possible. For such a bloodthirsty (sometimes literally), it’s fitting that she go out like that.



[1] - This alternate title should not be confused with the 1990 female superhero film Midnight Angel, which also stars Yukari Oshima.

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