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.
