Martial Angels (2001)

Martial Angels (2001) Chinese Title: 絕色神偷 Translation: Stunning Thieves

Starring: Julian Cheung, Shu Qi, Kelly Lin, Teresa Mak, Rachel Ngan, Sandra Ng, Terence Yin, Rosemary Vandenbroucke, Amanda Strang, Wong Jing, Ron Smoorenburg

Director: Clarence Ford

Action Director: Andy Chan

Martial Angels belongs to what I call the “Neo-Girls n’ Guns” era. Girls n’ Guns as a sub-genre of Hong Kong action started in 1985 with the release and success of Yes, Madam! That film catapulted both Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock to fame. I would say that the Golden Age of the genre occurred between 1985 and 1989, when it was at its most profitable. I would then say that the “Silver Age” went from 1990 to 1993: the films weren’t quite so popular with local audiences, but they still did well overseas and generally maintained a standard of quality comparable to the 1980s films. From 1994 onwards, the sub-genre went on a decline: Moon Lee moved into TV while Cynthia Khan and Yukari Oshima worked a lot in the Philippines, where the film quality dropped precipitously.

Concurrent to the decline in traditional Girls n’ Guns films, the start in the Neo-G&G era found its start. The earliest examples featured bankable actresses starring in action films that were usually heavy on the gunplay, but lighter on the more physical action. Think Anita Yuen in A Taste of Killing and Romance or Wu Chien-Lien in Beyond Hypothermia. This is more-or-less the state of the sub-genre today, which extends into Mainland cinema as well. Martial Angels fits that mold: casting non-fighting actresses in action roles and dressing up the action with doubles and slick editing.

Directing this film was Clarence Ford, best known for his work on The Iceman Cometh and the fan favorite The Naked Killer. Sadly, after making the latter film, he struggled to the reach the heights of fame and fan appraisal that the Category III classic had garnered. People may remember the VHS cover to Her Name is Cat, but nobody actually talks about that film. Heck, if it weren’t for him working with Donnie Yen on Special ID twenty years after that, I would have written off any early success as a lucky fluke. Martial Angels shows that he was still trying to recapture that early career glory, but So Close this film is not.

The movie opens with a monologue from Lok Chi-Yeung (Julian Cheung, who starred alongside Shu Qi in Extreme Crisis), a master thief who cares less about the money and more about the thrill of the heist. He has targeted a multi-millionaire dollar piece of jewelry that is being worn by some rich girl at a party being thrown at a castle (played by awful CGI). Also targeting the jewelry is a band of female cat thieves, led by a woman appropriately named Cat (Shu Qi, of So Close and Seoul Raiders). Cat and Lok sorta fall in love while trying to steal the jewel, which is kept in a safe at the bottom of a swimming pool. Wait what? Won’t the constant exposure to water and chlorine ruin it at some point? The heist is successful and they make it out with both the loot and each other’s hearts.

Three years pass and Cat has now abandoned life in the fast lane for a more traditional career: secretary for a big exec at a major software company. She meets up with a member of her team, Octopus (Kelly Lin, of Reign of Assassins and The Legend of Zu). After having a good time together, they return to her home for drinks and more female activities—probably braiding each other’s hair and talking about boys. They are ambushed by a bunch of Russian mobsters working for Paracov (Ron Smoorenburg, of Who Am I? and Triple Threat). Paracov has kidnapped Lok, whom Cat had broken up with—he still wanted to engage in thievery when she wanted to settle down—and is demanding that Cat steal a super virus software from her company in exchange for Lok.

As Cat still loves her ex-boyfriend, she decides to get the gang back together for one more job. Since her boss occupies a high station, she is able to see the Mission Impossible-rip off security system for herself. Among other things, she is going to need the fingerprints of the software creator, Fred (director Wong Jing), and possibly the talent of an explosives expert. Sexy angel Peacock (Rosemary Vandenbroucke, of Lady Bloodfight) tries to seduce Fred, but fails: he actually prefers her colleague Monkey (comic actress Sandra Ng). Meanwhile, the best explosives expert, Bone (Terence Yin, of Hot War and Gen-X Cops), is an outright pervert with nasty designs on Spider (French-born actress Amanda Strang).

With all that extra baggage to deal with, the Angels decide to lie to Paracov and tell him that they have already stolen the virus. During the exchange, a huge gunfight erupts and they manage to whisk Lok away to safety. But then the dipstick gets himself kidnapped again and Cat has no choice but to steal the software for real…

Martial Angels plays like a cross between Charlie’s Angels (which came out the previous year) and the first Mission Impossible movie. The problem is that it is not even half as entertaining as either of those movies. There are seven female protagonists, but none of them really register beyond Cat, Octopus, and Monkey. Pigeon (Rachel Ngan) is supposed to be the hacker of the group, but she doesn’t do much hacking. The two half-French actresses are around mainly to look pretty. And there’s Goldfish (Category III veteran Teresa Mak), who looks like she might be important, but just blends into the background. They don’t even have a specific skills to exploit, like The Fighter, The Thief, The Planner, The Sniper, The Seductress, The Lockpicker, etc. They are six pretty actresses (plus Sandra Ng, looking like a filled-out Michelle Yeoh this time around) who don’t even get ogled by the camera—when Ching Siu-Tung remade Clarence Ford’s own Naked Killer the following year as Naked Weapon, he exploited the actresses’ looks to the hilt.

The action also fails to register on any emotional level. Staging the set pieces is C-string choreographer Andy Chan, who has worked on a number of well-known films, but often they are projects that don’t stick out on account of their fight scenes. People like Bio-Zombie, but it is not seen by fans as a movie that sticks out on account of the set pieces. He has worked with more talented choreographers like Corey Yuen (Saviour of the Soul) and Stephen Tung Wai (Beast Stalker), but there is nothing in his filmography that stands out as being remotely close to classic status. 

In this film, we get a big shoot-out in an apartment building during the initial attempt to rescue Lok, complete with two-fisted pistols and a fair amount of squibs. Nothing that we haven’t done better in a John Woo film or a Stephen Tung Wai movie. The finale has some fisticuffs here and there, but the actresses are heavily doubled, masked by quick cuts. Male actors Julian Cheung and Terence Yin do more believable fighting (i.e. less intrusive editing) than the ladies do, which is a bad thing in a G&G movie. And that last moment, where the traitor (yes, there’s a traitor) reveals herself: the scene is so rushed and incompetently edited that you will have to rewind it several times to figure out exactly what happened…and I think you’ll still be scratching your head. And Ron Smoorenburg’s kicking skills are completely wasted in this movie.

This was made at a time when Hong Kong films were in steep decline and the few movies being made were given an extra layer of sheen in order to appeal to international audiences. Martial Angels fails on most accounts as a genre film: it is neither exciting enough, nor sexy enough, nor coherent enough to make for even disposable entertainment. It should just be disposed of, period.

This review is part of Fighting Female February 2025