(this article was originally published in a fanzine, Xenorama #18, in the spring of 2015)
The
mustached maniac threw a barrage of blows at Inspector Ng, who blocked each
every one of them, not flinching the least as he battered her forearms into
oblivion. A quick duck on her part saved her head from being ripped clean off
by a power spinning heel kick, although she wasn't fast enough to evade the
killer-in-army-fatigue's leg sweep, which lifted her high into the air. Ng
landed on the balustrade, narrowly missing what would have been a fatal fall.
But
Ng's troubles were far from over. The maniac's continued his martial onslaught,
even as the Inspector lay on her back. She quickly got to her feet and, in an
amazing display of poise, performed a cartwheel across the balustrade. Backed
up against a post, she dodged the man's roundhouse kick, swinging around the
bost and burying her foot into his face.
His
pride hurting more than his head, the mustached lunatic lunged for his knife,
which was sticking out of the wall.
Ng
wagged her finger and said, “Hey, you said you didn't need a knife, you
chicken.”
Introduction
Nineteen
eighty-five was an extremely important year for Hong Kong action cinema, being
arguably one of the most influential single since 1978, arguably unequaled by
any single year since. You see, that year saw the release of the
hugely-successful Police Story film, which not only lifted the bar for
large-scale stunt-oriented action, but started a franchise that ran four films
from 1985 to 1996 (six in some territories, which count Crime Story (1993) as
an entry in the series), and that's not counting two more unrelated films, New
Police Story (2004) and Police Story 2013, and a spin-off movie, Project S
(1993). It wa also the year that the Sammo Hung-directed action comedy, My
Lucky Stars, would become one of the biggest hits of the decade (a sequel, Twinkle,
Twinkle Lucky Stars, was released the same year and had even better action in
it). And let us not forget the landmark hit Mr. Vampire, which spawned lots of
sequels, spin-offs, reimaginings, and rip-offs, including one featuring Bushman
actor Nixau of The Gods Must be Crazy fame.
But
the movie that interests us now is Yes, Madam!, which like the films mentioned
above, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. We live in a time where
the red flag is constantly being raised by feminists and the
politically-correct over the treatment of women in Hollywood. From
controversies stemming over a woman running in high heels from a tyrannosaurus
to a lack of female action figures accompanying a multi-billion-dollar
franchise, women can't seem to get a break when it comes to action films in
Hollywood. And that's to say nothing of the absurd difficulty that filmmakers
have had in doing anything related to Wonder Woman, or giving Catwoman a solo
project worth watching, or stuff like that. And even when women do take the
forefront in Hollywood, more often than not it's done in a sexualized manner,
as if an ass-kicking woman wasn't attractive in and of itself.
But
while Hollywood has struggled for years to get over their own sexist mindsets,
the Chinese have been extolling women in action roles for decades. The first
modern (i.e. In terms of story mechanics, portrayal of violence, and the like)
martial arts film is generally considered to be the 1966 King Hu masterpiece Come Drink With Me, which is at its best whenever Cheng Pei Pei is hacking the
stuffing out of everyone who stands in her way. King Hu really liked the
powerful swordswoman, since he cast a young and unknown Polly Shang Kuan in his
next film, Dragon Gate Inn (1967), followed by Hsu Feng in two more
masterpieces, A Touch of Zen (1970) and The Valiant Ones (1975). The 1970s were
home to many a female fighter, from the intense, headkicking Angela Mao, to the
powerful Polly Shang Kuan Ling Feng, to the acrobatic and multi-talented Chia
Ling. More female fighters popped up during the old school era, like the
graceful Kara Hui Ying-Hung, the hyper-flexible Sharon Ng Pan-Pan, and lovely
Hsia Kwan Li. These women beat down their male counterparts with little
remorse, never needed to doff the duds in order to be sexy to us male fans.
They let their martial skills and intense gazes speak for them.
Despite
a few attempts during the seventies to place Chinese women in a modern action
context, such as the highly-lucrative Shaw Brothers film Deadly Angels (1977),
once Sammo and Jackie revolutionized the genre in 1983, it would be another two
years before the quintessential female action film would be produced. That film
would be Yes, Madam!, a movie that would jump-start the careers of Michelle
Yeoh (once the highest-paid actress in Hong Kong) and Cynthia Rothrock (who in
the 90s was known as Queen of the B-movies, a title not to be taken lightly).
The film also started the Girls n' Guns genre, which has attracted dozens, if
not hundreds of fans to Hong Kong cinema over the years. It is that movie and
its immediate legacy that we would like to a look at.
The Film
The
movie starts off with a bang as Inspector Ng (Yeoh) takes on a small of gang of
robbers targeting an armored truck. In one of the earliest examples of the art
of “gun fu”, Ng jumps and somersaults in, on, and around cars while exchanging
bullets with the robbers. The violent sequence ends with Ng cooly blowing the
hand off a robber with a 12-guage shotgun after he refuses to give up. At no
point in this scene does Michelle Yeoh use her sex appeal to get the job done;
she's a no-nonsense hard-hitter here and that alone is enough to make many a
fan just want to drop down a single knee and ask for her hand.
We
then move on to the plot, such as it is. Inspector Ng is getting ready to visit
an old mentor of hers, a police analyst from Scotland Yard (in the new dub, his
name is Richard Norton, an amusing nod to Cynthia Rothrock's frequent co-star
and American and Hong Kong action film veteran). Following their dinner, Ng
plans on going on vacation in the UK, where she'll be staying with him. But
that won't be happening any time soon. Norton is wasted in his room by a
hitman, played by perennial movie heavy Dick Wei. Dick is looking for a
microfilm that has evidence of some faulty contracting on the part of his boss,
played by James Tien. Back in the 1980s, when you needed someone to play a
crime boss, you hired James Tien, the same way you hired Roy Chiao whenever you
needed a lawyer or a judge. The microfilm, which was hidden in a passport, is
taken by two petty thieves, Aspirin and Strepsil (Meng Hoi and John Shum,
respectively). They give the passport to their forger colleague, played by respected
Hong Kong director Tsui Hark.
This
is where things get complicated. Tsui switches the photo on the passport and
sells it to some shmo bail-skipper (another perennial HK movie heavy, Eddy
Maher), and then turns him it when he gets worried that he'll be snitched on.
This leads to a big chase/fight between the bail skipper, Inspector Ng, and the
police at the airport. The guy tries to take a hostage, who happens to be
Inspector Carrie Morris from England (Rothrock). Needless to say, Carrie doesn't
take too kindly to being a hostage and beats the poor sucker to a pulp. Carrie
and Ng become partners, but initially don't like the idea, mainly because
Carrie thinks Ng is too soft and Ng thinks Carrie is too brutal. We've all seen
this before.
But
the bail-skipper doesn't like being snitched on, só he tries to get back at
Tsui for tattling on him. This gets Tsui in trouble with the police, who figure
out that he's in cahoots with Aspirin and Strepsil. At about the same time,
Dick finds out where they are, which leads to a chase sequence followed by a
fight in a nightclub between Ng, Carrie and Dick. Now that they know they're in
danger, Aspirin and Strepsil try to get police protection. Carrie and Ng,
however, won't be so kind as to simply throw the men in an isolated cell and
leave them there. They know that the microfilm has to be in their possession,
whether they are aware of it or not. And when the microfilm is found, the only
thing preventing Ng and the police from incarcerating Tien is sudden surfeit of
greed on Tsui and Aspirin's part.
While
some may complain about the trivial nature of the plot and the overused
microfilm macguffin, anybody who's familiar with 80s HK action cinema will know
that plot was always a secondary concern in these movies. It's something to
give the heroes some reason to be beating the snot out of each other and
performing death-defying stunts. That's all. The problem with this movie is the
lack of confidence that director Corey Yuen had in his two female protagonists.
Too much time is spent with Aspirin, Strepsil and Tsui, including two extended
celebrity cameo gags featuring Sammo Hung, Richard Ng and Wu Ma that really
didn't need to be in the final film.While the two women to dominate the action
portion of the film, the drama is mainly tied to the three petty criminal
supporting characters.
This
being an early Corey Yuen directorial effort, it's fascinating to see just how
many characteristics of his later films show up here. Overwrought death scene
of one of the protagonists preceding the climax? Check. Powerful female
fighters? Check. Blood spurting onto the camera lens? Check. Violent action
punctuated by goofy comedy? Check.
Where
the film really made its mark was in the action (natch!). I mentioned the first
set piece. The action comes in fits and spurts between the explosive opening
and the unforgettable finale. The best mid-film fight scene is probably the
airport chase with Eddy Maher, with Cynthia Rothrock showing off some excellent
legwork against the surprised criminal. The two-on-one bathroom fight with Dick
Wei is also solid.
Nonetheless,
most people will leave the film talking about the climax. For a good five whole
minutes (closer to ten if you count John Shum's antics and a breather where the
combatants exchange verbal barbs), Rothrock and Yeoh take on a mansion full of
stuntmen armed with long, curved watermelon knives, making sure that each of
them is dispatched in the most painful way possible. That usually involves the
poor sucker being thrown or knocked through glass, wooden furniture or both.
Rothrock does some traditional pole fighting for her fighting, while Michelle
displays the nimbleness acquired from years of ballet training. Finally,
Michelle Yeoh fights Sammo Hung stunt team member Chung Fat, who sports some
crazy eyebrows and a mean dagger, while Cynthia Rothrock fights Dick Wei.
Rothrock performs a great over-the-back kick against Wei, although during
filming, Wei hit so hard that Rothrock refused to fight him in any other movie
of hers (though they did co-star as villains in Sammo Hung's Millionaire's
Express). The fight sequence equals the more famous mall fight from Jackie
Chan's Police Story on every level, and shows us that women are just as
physically capable of doing the sort of insane stunt-driven action that Jackie
popularized during that decade. Action directors Corey Yuen and Meng Hoi
received a nomination for Best Action Design at the 5th Annual Hong Kong Film
Awards, but ended up losing to Jackie Chan's Stuntman Association for, well, Police
Story.
For
years, the film was not available in mainstream video stores in the USA. One
might have found it at a video store specializing in Asian films, although it
would not have been subtitled and may have been dubbed into a Southeast Asian
language, like Vietnamese or Hmong. The alternative would have been to find a
mail-order company and get a gray-market copy, which was what I did during the
late 90s. My vendor was Advantage Video, which sent me the original
International dub with Dutch subtitles(!). The international dub was
interesting, since it eliminated about ten minutes of footage (including a lot
of the actresses' bickering and the false arrest sequence leading up to the
heroines turning in their badges and pursuing vigilante justice) and
inexplicably tacked the opening action sequence to Sammo Hung's Where's Officer
Tuba, where David Chiang's stunt double performs a flying kick through the
windshield of a truck in movement, on to the beginning. It also featured a lot
of profanity, especially the “F-bomb” and gave Cynthia Rothrock's character a
British accent. The recent dub has restored the missing scenes and changed some
of the profanity to something less offensive.
The Sequels
Yes,
Madam grossed about 10 million Hong Kong dollars at the local box office, which
was a decent amount of money for what was probably a low-budget film (for
purposes of comparison, Police Story
grossed 26 million HKD; My Lucky Stars grossed 30 million HKD; and Heart of
Dragon grossed 20 million HKD; all featured Jackie Chan in the cast). A
follow-up was in short order. Yes Madam is generally considered to be the start
of the In the Line of Duty franchise, which ran for six more films between 1986
and 1991.
The
first “sequel” to Yes, Madam was In the Line of Duty, aka Royal Warriors. We'll discuss that one in a separate article. It is interesting that Royal Warriors is considered to be the first In the Line of Duty while Yes, Madam! was retitled In the Line of Duty 2 in some markets.
By
1988, Michelle Yeoh had married Dickson Poon, the executive producer of D&B
Films, which produced these movies. At the time, an actress getting married
meant retirement, which Michelle did until their divorce a few years later. So
when the next sequel, In the Line of Duty III, was produced, a new actress was
chosen to fill in Michelle's shoes. The role went to 20-year-old Taiwanese
dancer/martial artist Cynthia Yang, whose stage name was Cynthia Khan, meant to
cash in on Michelle Yeoh's then stage name, Michelle Khan. The film was
extremely hardcore, with an astronomical body count, graphic deaths and even
some explicit sex, a first for the series.
A
third sequel came out the following year, with Cynthia Khan continuing in the
role as Inspector Yeung. Directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping, Yuen brought
his protégé Donnie Yen onboard, who plays an arrogant CIA agent who teams up
with Yeung to protect a witness from
crooked CIA agents led by Michael Fitzgerald Wong. In the Line of Duty IV is 90
minutes of literal non-stop action, most of it being hand-to-hand combat, but
with some vehicular stunts thrown in for variety. Most notable is a fight
between Cynthia and some thugs atop a moving ambulance and the now-famous
dirtbike jousting sequence between Donnie Yen and frequent collaborator Michael
Woods. The finale features some the best fighting ever committed to film.
Most
people tend to agree that the series suffered a steep drop in quality with the
next entry, In the Line of Duty V: Middle Man (1990). I am not one of those
people. Gone is Yuen Woo-Ping and his entourage, with Chris Lee, a former
member of Jackie Chan's Stunt Team, filling in as action director. The plot is
some mishmash about Inspector Yeung protecting a cousin from
international assassins working for a spy ring based in Korea. The action
highlights include an escrima duel between Cynthia Khan and Chris Lee, a fight
with Billy Chow, and the big finale, which ends with a bloody katana showdown
between Khan and Australian martial artist Kim Maree Penn.
The
sixth entry in the series, subtitled The Forbidden Arsenal, is easily the most
generic of the bunch. The film switched action directors yet again, with former
Venom Mob alumni Kuo Chi stepping up to
the plate. A pre-Mortal Kombat Robin Shou shows up as the main villain, but the
action is uneven (i.e. Cynthia Khan and Robin Shou are as good as can be
expected, everybody else is slow) and the film on the whole is forgettable.
The
series ended on a higher note with the last official film of the series, Sea Wolves (1991). Inspector Yeung is back, once more played by Cynthia Khan, as is
Philip Kwok as the action director. Khan teams up with Gary Chow, the survivor of a massacre by pirates who prey on
Vietnamese refugees. The final duel on the ship features some nice combat with
found objects and is the best moment of the last two films combined. It's not
up to the standard of action set by the first five movies, but it's a solid way
to end the series.
In Name Only
It
is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Unfortunately, it the
case of Yes, Madam, the three unrelated films whose English titles bear the
same name flatter the original in no way. In fact, two of them not only denigrate
the image of Corey Yuen's classic and entered the author's “Worst Films
Watched in 2015” list, but stand shamefully among the worst Chinese movies ever
made.
The
first offender is Yes Madam '92: A Serious Shock. With a title like that and a
cast that features the Girls n' Guns Trifecta: Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan, and
Yukari Oshima, one would expect nothing more than pure HK action genius at
work. That turns out to not be the case. The premise is certain solid, but the
execution is severely lacking.
Moon
Lee and Cynthia Khan play May and Wan Chin, fellow Hong Kong cops who went
through the police academy together. Wan Chin is engaged to another cop, played
by Sex and Zen's Lawrence Ng. The fellow once had an affair with May, but broke
it off when he decided to get serious with Wan Chin. When May finds out that
the couple will emigrate following the nuptials, she simply snaps.
She
kills the poor sap and manipulates another admirer on the force to help her put
the blame on Wan Chin. But the drama doesn't end there. Wan Chin goes into
hiding with a car thief named Coco (Yukari Oshima), but it doesn't take long
before May finds out. May has her admirer do horrible things like kidnapping
her friends and setting them on fire in order to force Coco to reveal where Wan
Chin is. More horrible things happen before the two women confront an
increasingly-deranged May in a warehouse.
The
major problem with the movie is the lack of decent action. The first act is
promising, but once fiancé boy is out of the picture, the movie tones down the
action and turns up the torment of Coco, which is not very exciting. The finale
in the warehouse is especially a let-down, partly because Yukari Oshima doesn't
contribute much to the fighting, but also because the choreography is sadly
muted. I expected more from veteran Fung Hak-On—who cameos early on as a random
perp in a scene that clashes tonally with everything that comes later. All
three of the ladies have given much better performances in other films, and
it's said to see them fight só generically here, that is, whenever the director
decides that they should fight.
Moreover,
the absence of fisticuffs worthy of the first In the Line of Duty films is
doubly disappointing when you consider just how many evil deeds Moon Lee's May
has piled onto her résumé by the time the finale rolls around. I mean, she has
her boytoy transform Coco's best friend (Waise Lee) into a drug addict for
crying out loud! I was fully expecting Khan and Oshima to kick and spin kick
Moon Lee's character into a broken, bloody mess. But I was denied that sort of
consolation. As a result, we have a movie with three action queens whose
titular “serious shock” is nothing more than the disappointment gleamed from
how much their skills is wasted.
Worse
still was the Taiwanese action comedy Yes Madam (1995), a film só devoid of any
sort of comic restraint that it makes Jackie Chan's City Hunter look like a
Woody Allen film in comparison. Cynthia Khan plays Lydia Lee, the leader of a
special crime-fighting squad called “The A-Team.” She dates her former fellow
student and security guard, Dave, who one day finds a little black book
belonging to Bryan, an evil supervillain who dresses like a bad guy from a
cheap traditional chopsockey film. Boyfriend guy is marked for death by the
Bryan, and only Lydia Lee can help him.
The
comedy is goofy and absurd, with characters breaking out into song and dance
for no reason or acting like they're in a live-action cartoon. Bryan is flanked
by a guy in Peking Opera make-up and a grill, not to mention two flunkies whose
faces are painted green and white and who can kiss a person until they die. The
boyfriend has a goofy family, including a perverted 8-year-old brother who can
remove a person's pants with his mind and another younger brother who spends
his time dressing like Goku and practicing drunken boxing. That's the level of
film we're dealing with here.
The
action, choreographed by Christopher Chan, who plays Dave and whose biggest
credit was Assistant Action Director on Stephen Tung's Extreme Challenge
(2001), is too sparse to justify the time spent watching the movie. The action
is frequently wire-assisted and sped-up, although the first random fight scene
is pretty fun. The rest of it is too idiotic to be enjoyable, especially at the
end when two villains start flying around and firing Chi blasts at Lydia Lee
like an early 90s wuxia pan, despite the film's modern setting. I cannot in
good conscience recommend the film to anyone, even Cynthia Khan completists. It's
that bad.
Less
aggressively bad, but still an utter waste of the talent involved, was Yes
Madam 5 (1996). Directed by Philip Ko, one could only imagine how the guy who
participated in so many important movies, Shaw Brothers and otherwise, could
direct and choreograph such tripe. Khan plays Inspector Yeung, a HK police
officer on the trail of the Malaysian girlfriend of a murdered undercover cop.
What she doesn't initially realize is that her crime boss boyfriend, played by Fist of Legend's Chin Siu-Ho is also involved in the
case. Despite his wanting to go straight, Chin is dogged at every corner by
another member of the gang, played by Philip Ko. Lots of drama occurs before
the action begins, although when it finally does, it's directed só limply that
once again I can't help buy wonder how a person could make such a bland film
with só many talented people.
The
action is extremely stingy, not to mention badly filmed. Chin Siu-Ho performs a
few nice aerial kicks, and Billy Chow shows up to show everybody that he's
faster and more powerful than everybody else, but even then he only gets a
single fight. Khan's fights are awkwardly photographed and do nothing to
flatter her skills. Another Girls n' Guns hard hitter, Sharon Yeung Pan Pan,
shows up in the first scene as a Mainland cop and gets a brief fight, but her
scene really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It's a disparaging
sight, this movie.
So
in closing, in honor of Yes, Madam's 30th birthday, all we can say is that, for
all its flaws, it's still among the best of its kind.
This article is part of Fighting Female February '23: The Month of of Michelle
