Angel Enforcers (1989)
aka: Iron Angels (Tubi title)
Chinese Title: 皇家飛鳳
Translation: Royal Phoenix
Starring: Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan, Dick Wei, Phillip Ko Fei, Ha Chi-Chun, Chiu Wai-Ling, Kitty Meng Chui, Aan Lee, Wu Fung, Walter Tso Tat-Wah
Director: Godfrey Ho
Action Director: Phillip Ko Fei
Godfrey Ho may be a director of questionable talents and ethics, but his GWG films are certainly something else. Lethal Panther is borderline porno, while Princess Madam goes on an unexpected Fatal Attraction tangent before taking a few dark twists in the last 20 minutes. Angel Enforcers is a bit more conventional, but it also has a few twists and dark turns of its own.
There is a team of 4 female C.I.D. officers that include Maryanne (Aan Lee) and Yvonne (Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan). We meet them as they're busting a drug deal on the docks. Their next job is to bust a bunch of jewelry thieves (including Ridley Tsui), one of whom is an undercover cop. The thieves are in league with a criminal organization run by Mr. Big (actually a woman, played by Ha Chi-Chun, of Aces Go Places V and Widow Warriors). The cop blows his cover before he can find out her identity, and she sends a pair of assassins known as the Lethal Weapons (Phillip Ko Fei and Dick Wei) to ice him. Phillip Ko manages to kill the cop, but is shot down by Maryanne. Dick Wei vows revenge...
Nobody has plot armor in this film, and that's what keeps you on your toes. Moreover, I don't know if it's bad writing or savvy directing, but by the third act, the main antagonist is pushed into secondary bad guy status while the secondary villain (Dick Wei) becomes the main villain. Even stranger is how unceremoniously the former is whacked during the climax. That said, the action occurs at a regular pace; you're never more than 10 minutes away from the next set piece. The action varies from fighting to shoot-outs to foot chases to stalk-and-kills. The fights tend to be a little bit short, including the finale 3-on-1 against Dick Wei, who's an absolute monster in this movie. He steals the show. There are better GWG films out there, but this one is fun way to waste an hour and a half.
Strangest scene: a Gwailo girl spends several minutes topless trying to seduce Charlie Cho (the slimy lawyer in Police Story) into renewing a lease for Mr. Big's nightclub. When he refuses, she handcuffs him to the railing of his yacht and sends a pair of American gay porno actors to rape him.
Princess Madam (1989)
aka: Angel Protectors; Under Police Protection
Chinese Title: 金牌師姐
Translation: Gold Medal Senior Sister
Starring: Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Sharon Yeung Pan-Pan, Michiko Nishiwaki, Liu Kai-Chi, Anthony Tang Ho-Gwong, Yueh Hua, Kenneth Tsang Kong, Cheng Yuen-Man
Director: Godfrey Ho
Action Director: Douglas Kung
A woman decides to testify against her former boss, who used to be a crime boss but has now gone straight. He immediately tries to kill her, even sending an army of motorcycle gang of assassins after her and her police escorts, including Moon Lee and Sharon Yeung Pan Pan. So, while the lady is in the safe house, Moon Lee and Sharon Yeung have their own problems and lives to deal with. Moon Lee's husband has a one-night stand with Michiko Nishiwaki because she's always away for work, but Michiko has some evil designs on the couple. Sharon Yeung's father, played by the late Kenneth Tsang, is a former cop and was on the take with said former crime boss. When she finds out this fact, the story takes a surprisingly dark turn...
By the end of the 1980s, it seems Godfrey Ho had stopped with the Cut n' Paste films and was trying to make "real" movies, starting with a number of GWG films, like this and Angel Enforcers. Although none of them are considered classics, they have their moments. This one has a lot of solid fight action and Michiko at her sexiest. Some people think that the Michiko subplot was taken from another film (which happened to also star Moon and Sharon), since it does feel a little divorced from the witness protection plot. It didn't like feel like a separate movie to me; it just felt like a strange writing decision to spend the second act of the movie on a subplot involving a secondary villain. Has anything ever been confirmed?
The action is good. The finale eschews the fisticuffs in favor of going the full of John Woo, thus emphasizing the "guns" of the Girls with Guns moniker. Ironically, despite the name of the sub-genre, fans tend to prefer the fighting over the gunplay in these films, But occasionally, it's good to see a GWG film with some strong gunplay and I enjoyed watching Sharon Yeung doing impossible gun stunts. Add that to some crazy twists at the end, and you have a decent way to spend 90 minutes.
Finally, this one comes across as a sequel to Angel Enforcers, thanks to that film's throwaway line of dialog about Sharon Yeung's cop character being an orphan, which is also the case with her character in this one.
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