Angel II (1988)

Angel II (1988)
aka: Iron Angels II; Angels 2; Midnight Angels 2
Chinese Title: 天使行動II火鳳狂龍
Translation: Angel Action II: Fire Phoenix, Mad Dragon

 

Starring: Alex Fong Chung-Sun, Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, Nathan Chan Ting-Wai, Siu Yuk-Lung, Kharina, Lee Ching-Ha, Yuen Tak
Director: Teresa Woo
Action Director: Stanley Tong

Angel is one of my favorite Girls n’ Guns films, if only for sentimental value. Angel II is an interesting case: some genre fans, including author Thomas Weisser, believe this one to be the best in the trilogy. I can sort of see why, since the big finale is well…bigger than any of the action sequences in the first film and it features one of Moon Lee’s absolute best moments. But once more, writer-producer-director Teresa Woo makes some odd decisions when it comes to making a Girls n’ Guns film that bring the film down a rung from the first entry.

The movie opens with a blast: Mona (Moon Lee, of Bury Me High and Beauty Investigator) goes to an abandoned mansion to negotiate a hostage exchange with some shady types. When the kidnappers decide that they want to keep the money and the hostage, a huge gunfight-cum-kung fu battle breaks out, complete with exploding grenades. Fellow Angel Helen (Elaine Lui, of Red Wolf and Once Upon a Time in China 5) and DEA operative Alex (Alex Fong, sort of reprising his role from the first film—the subs state he’s working for the CIA now) join Mona for the madness. Mission accomplished.

Alex then takes Mona and Helen to Malaysia for some R&R. While a questionable cabby—he has no license and makes all sorts of untrue claims about the clunker he drives—is taking the three to their hotel, they drive past a limo belonging to rich businessman/philanthropist named Peter Kam (Nathan Chan, of Love to Kill and Something Incredible – Return of the Devil). Apparently, Alex knows Peter from somewhere, because he comandeers the car and gets into a high speed chase with the limo and its accompanying bodyguard cars. We eventually learn—after another fight scene—that Alex and Peter are old friends, having studied criminal justice (or something) in the USA. Peter graciously invites Alex and the girls to his estate for the remainder of their trip.

Once at Peter’s pad, Mona and Helen just sort of hang around while Alex, Peter, and another colleague, Marco (Siu Yuk-Lung, of Possessed II and The Haunted Madam), go about the town, getting in bar fights and picking up on transsexual women. Peter also begins to spend time with Helen, who starts falling for him. One day, while the three are touring Peter’s palm oil factory and plantation, Marco is caught spying on an arms deal taking place on the other end of the palm forest. He is, in fact, working for the CIA and has good reason to believe that Peter is raising a small army to lead a Leftist coup d’état against the Malaysian government. Marco is captured and eventually executed.

During the time between Marco’s capture and his eventual death, Alex gets a call from the CIA informing him of Peter’s suspected activities. He finds evidence of it for himself and tries to persuade Helen to his side. She initially rejects the idea, but sneaks a ride on her new beau’s helicopter and ends up overhearing the ill-fated agent’s execution. When she’s found out, she puts up a good fight with Peter’s lieutenants, but is ultimately beaten and taken captive. Now it’s time for Alex and Mona, now assisted by a Malaysian Angel (Kharina, who shows up in the next film), to take on Peter’s army before the Malaysian army shows up and kills everyone, including Helen.

The big misstep that Teresa Woo makes in this film is pushing Moon Lee—the best martial artist among the protagonists—to the sidelines after the promising opening set piece. Moon Lee has little to do but lounge around the mansion (occasionally in a bathing suit) until the hour mark, when its time to go to war. Elaine Lui has more to do this time than she did in the first film, or at least is given more character depth (as opposed to her fashion-conscious airhead role in the first film). So the final shots are a bit more emotionally charged for her character than, well, any scene was for Moon Lee in any of the three movies.

Even so, much of the action during the second and third acts ends up going to Alex Fong, who’s not even really one of the Angels. I mean, his fights are reasonably well choreographed and all, but we’re here to see women fight, not Alex Fong. This is especially true for the final scuffle, which pits Alex and Peter in mortal combat. From a narrative perspective, it makes sense that those two would need to have the final showdown. Nonetheless, it’s strange that a female-centric action film made by a woman would end up putting the most important fights in the hands of the men. I’m pretty sure you could have switched Alex’s and Elaine’s roles in that sequence and still have gotten the same emotional impact, while not skimping on the Girls n’ Guns action.

Speaking of which, Tony Leung Siu-Hung did not return for this entry, being replaced by Stanley Tong. Stanley Tong had mainly worked as a stuntman up til this point, with his only prior choreographer credit being the wushu film Zen Master 6. Here he shows LOTS of promise as an action director, both in terms of scale and just knowing how to stage a good fight. The finale is reminiscent of the previous year’s Eastern Condors (and Stanley’s later work on Police Story 3: Supercop), full of machine guns, grenades, rockets, and exploding huts. Moon Lee even gets to use wrist-mounted arrow launchers and a crossbow! Stanley has always been open about his influences from Hollywood, and you can definitely see the traces of Rambo: First Blood Part 2 here, especially at the very end.

The tour-de-force in the action is a pair of fights between Moon Lee and two members of Peter’s rebel army, played by Chan Ming-Ching and Yuen Tak (Three Evil Masters and Hero). The latter appears to have been a member of either Stanley Tong’s stuntman group or Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association, although I’m inclined to think it was the former. Yuen Tak was one of the Seven Fortunes and an extremely talented action director in his own right. Anyway, Moon’s fight with those two features some killer choreography, including some nice jump kicks from Moon plus a nice bit with a retractable steel baton (17 years before Donnie used it against Wu Jing in Sha Po Lang). However, Yuen Tak ends up stealing the show with his speed and power—he did something similar in both Dragon from Russia and Hero. The man is a martial beast and I wonder why he didn’t spend more time in front of the camera after the old school kung fu movie died out. This section of the climax lasts about three minutes, and you wonder why there couldn’t have been more of it throughout the running time.