I Love Maria (1988)

I Love Maria (1988)
Aka: Roboforce
Chinese Title: 鐵甲無敵瑪利亞
Translation: Invincible Iron Maria

Starring: John Shum, Tsui Hark, Sally Yeh, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Lam Ching-Ying, Ben Lam, Paul Chun Pui, Dennis Chan
Director: David Chung
Action Director: Tony Ching Siu-Tung

Hong Kong doesn’t make a lot of science fiction films. Or at least it traditionally hasn’t. And when it does, the results are unique, to say the least. Part of the reason may be that Hong Kong movies have budgets that are probably pretty small even when compared to Japan, so professional-looking FX are often a bit hard to pull off. That would easily give Hollywood the advantage over local fare, at least in that genre. And it may just be a case of local tastes, too. Or a little of both.

I Love Maria came out in 1988, about a year after The Final Test, another Hong Kong film about robots and androids. It’s pretty clear that a lot of care was put into the visuals, although the 5-million-dollar local gross suggests that audiences weren’t buying it—makes me wonder how popular Robocop and The Terminator were in Hong Kong. But bless Tsui Hark, Golden Princess, and Film Workshop for at least trying to do something different. Even if the results will vary from one viewer to another.

The film is set in the near future with Hong Kong being on the verge of becoming a Police State—although Paul Chun Pui plays his power-made police captain as a source of humor instead of oppression. But the police have a big problem that all the assault rifles in the world can’t resolve: The Heroes Gang. The Heroes Gang appears to be some sort of paramilitary political entity who have managed to steal enough money to finance the construction of a giant robot, the Pioneer 1. During a supposed bank heist, the police show up in time to see a fifteen-foot robot emerge from the establishment simply pulling the entire safe by a chain. The Pioneer 1 kills several police officers before disappearing with the money.

The next day, a team of police scientists are discussing weapons to use against the robot. The best idea comes from Curly (John Shum, of The Pedicab Driver and Winners Among Sinners), a nerdy scientist whose weapon actually is superior to whatever his boss (Dennis Chan, of Kickboxer and Code of Honour) has come up with. But since his boss values his own job, he simply rips up Curly’s plans while he’s not working. That evening, Curly heads to a bar to get some alcohol to drown out his resentment of “the system” and meets Whiskey (Tsui Hark, of A Better Tomorrow and Yes, Madam!). Whiskey is the type who goes to the bar to get black-out drunk on a nightly basis and we’ll soon learn that he’s an ex-member of the Heroes Gang.

That’s a problem. Because the Heroes Gang keeps close tabs on their “prodigal son,” just to be sure that he doesn’t go to the cops. But since Curly works the police, they assume that Whiskey has gone traitor. That’s a problem for Whiskey and men are sent to wipe him out. It is only thanks to the intervention of Sifu (Lam Ching-Ying, of The Prodigal Son and Skin Stripperess), the former leader of the Heroes Gang. The current leader, played by Ben Lam of Police Story 2 and The Angry Ranger, is a bit insane. His lover is Maria (Sally Yeh, of Golden Queen Commando and The Killer), who had previously been involved with Whiskey (and her abandoning him for the current leader may be the reason for his current alcoholism). This current leader is obsessed with robots and his latest project is the Pioneer 2, a human-sized android that can be fitted with human skin to fit in. Like that of Maria. And much to the real Maria’s chagrin, the leader is more obsessed with the Pioneer 2 being the perfect “Maria”.

Anyway, the Pioneer 2 is sent to eliminate Whisky and it’s through coincidence, contrivance, and sheer dumb luck that both he and Curly survive the encounter. Meanwhile, the Pioneer 2 is hit by a deluge of water and falls onto a giant ceiling fan and breaks. The two men go into hiding in the countryside from both the police (who think that Curly is in league with Heroes Gang) and the gang itself, who now has dispatched the Pioneer 1 to eliminate both men. Curly is able to reprogram the Pioneer 2 to be their protector, which proves handy when the Pioneer 1 manages to find them. Meanwhile, the leader and his scientists are working on the Pioneer 3, which for all intents an purposes is just a Megazord…

I Love Maria is one of those films in which the final product ends up being less than the sum of its individual parts. I think much of that has to do with the story, which is played mainly as a slapstick comedy. Whenever the film is in action mode, it’s reasonably fun. But much of the movie is bickering between John Shum and Tsui Hark, which can get tiring after a while. There is also a third protagonist, a newspaper photographer played by a pre-fame Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Hard Boiled and Shang Chi), who more or less bumbles in and out of the story until the last act, when he plays a more important part. And maybe that’s the problem, the film just bumbles around from one set piece to the next without focusing on a specific external conflict (i.e. what is the Heroes Gang leader’s specific plot?), what the stakes are, and how it applies to the heroes. Heck, the climax itself almost doesn’t happen because the heroes are trying to run away.

Speaking of climax, the film’s action sequences were staged by Ching Siu-Tung, who was doing a lot of work for Film Workshop at the time—fantasy, Heroic Bloodshed, and this. Much of the action involves gunplay, although there’s only one scene that feels especially stylized: when Lam Ching-Ying leads his men into a forest to hunt for Tsui Hark and they all use special grappling hooks to swing through the trees (with wire assistance) like Tarzan while firing automatic weapons at our protagonist. That’s some Grade-A Hong Kong action imagery right there.

Ching Siu-Tung’s penchant for wire-fu also comes in handy for the Pioneer 2/Maria-bot, as he uses wires to have her fly around, representing the jet boosters in her feet. That is an adequate reason for wire assistance. I actually wish there was more of that sort of action instead of just gunplay. There are some robot-on-robot fights in the film, although the Pioneer 1’s ability to “gobble up” missiles and other projectiles is suspect: it assumes that anyone who fires a missile at it will inevitably aim for the stomach region. If you want martial arts action, there is some limited fighting between Lam Ching-Ying and Ben Lam at the end, although the latter doesn’t display his great legwork.

The costumes and full-scale mock-ups for the robots look great for a film of this budget. As you might have guessed, the use of the name “Maria” both for the robot and the human who inspired her is an homage of sorts to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and in her initial form, looks a little like the robot from that film. I just wish that all these practical effects and costumes were in service of a more focused and compelling story. I guess science-fiction wasn’t Yuen Kai-Chi’s talent. But the man wrote A Chinese Ghost Story; The Pedicab Driver; and Once Upon a Time in China, who he has more than earned his keep on this Earth.