Magnificent Warriors (Review)
Magnificent Warriors
aka 中華戰士 aka Zhong hua zhan shi aka Dynamite Fighters aka Yes, Madam 3
1987
Written by Tsang Kan-Cheung
Directed by David Chung Chi-Man
Magnificent Warriors is a required Michelle Yeoh film to watch. There is so much energy and joy here as she gleefully beats the tar out of dozens of people while cracking whips, flying planes, and firing guns. She’s a pure pulp action hero who runs guns for rebels, flies her own plane, dogfights fighters despite being outmatched, goes on secret missions, does her job, helps inspire the people to fight, and stands tall against impossible odds.
Yeoh easily outshines costars Derek Yee and Richard Ng and the entire film is built around her mission against the invading Japanese. I don’t mean to cut Richard Ng short, he does hold his own as a live-action cartoon drifter con man who bumbles into all the action. Ng’s unnamed Drifter comes complete with his own cartoonish theme music that completely contrasts with the rest of the film’s adventury score, which totally works for hammering in the point that his character is a completely different archetype plopped into this mayhem. Together Ng and Yeoh overshadow Derek Yee so much that despite his character being a James Bond analogue he can barely keep up with them (and it stands out even more with Yeoh moving on to being an actual Bond girl!) Yee was from a prominent entertainment family and would eventually move into producing and directing and based on his output he seems to have found a good fit, several of his films being acclaimed as classics.
Magnificent Warriors is one of the Hong Kong films I rented from the late, lamented Le Video in San Francisco, I was working through Yeoh’s filmography (shockingly, most of her movies weren’t available in video stores in the Midwest!) and this one was amazing enough I watched it twice and ended up with a DVD myself soon after. It also begot my love for Richard Ng, as he popped up in some of the films I rented in rapid succession but was first memorable here.
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Chang Yu, Chiu Chi-Ling, Derek Yee Tung-Sing, Hong Kong, Lau Chin-Dai, Lowell Lo Koon-Ting, martial arts, Michelle Yeoh, Richard Ng Yiu-Hon
The Heroic Trio (Review)
The Heroic Trio
aka 東方三俠 aka Dong Fang San Xia
1993
Written by Sandy Shaw Lai-King
Directed by Johnnie To Kei-Fung
Next up in Tars reviews classic examples of global cinema that he should have damn well reviewed years ago is The Heroic Trio. Instead of again explaining how this was one of the first couple of Hong Kong films I saw and how it cemented me into a lifelong fan of Hong Kong Action Cinema, I’ll just remind you with this sentence that dismisses the topic while reaffirming it.
Make no mistake, The Heroic Trio is an awesome and classic piece of Hong Kong cinema from the last golden age. Johnnie To directing before he became a film festival darling. The ever-amazing Anita Mui being the most glamorous and moral super hero imaginable. Maggie Cheung as the rebel outsider hero who never looks before she leaps, and whose antics cause worse problems than the ones she tries to solve. Michelle Yeoh as the conflicted hero forced to serve evil. Anthony Wong in a surprisingly restrained performance as an unhinged psychopath.
The Heroic Trio both riffs on and celebrates the glamor of cinema. Characters can often be found posed while events are going down, an off screen fan conveniently nearby to make their hair flow in the wind. They go so far as to have Thief Catcher bring along fashion clothes for the women to wear after the job is done so they’ll look extra spectacular, and shots of the women all doing their model walk as Cantopop sings us out. The obvious Western influences are the Batman films from Burton, but there is a heavy Terminator vibe going on as well. For a more inward look, the vast amount of girls with guns films helped position female-driven action films as a good idea, and some of the set design look straight out of Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain. At one point a character uses a flying guillotine! The mixmash of films and ideas is one of the factors that makes Hong Kong film so great for the fans. Director Johnnie To lets the mood build not just with the actresses and their poses and expressions, but with a heavy use of Cantopop on the soundtrack, with Anita Mui showing why she was a legendary singing star at every note.
Johnnie To isn’t one to shy away from political metaphors, and The Heroic Trio is no exception. As 1997 and the turnover to China loomed in the minds of every Hong Kong citizen, it naturally became reflected in film. One reason why “Evil Master” seeks out male children is that one will be destined to become the new Emperor of China, under Evil Master’s control. Thus a return to Chinese rule would be a return to the olden days of Emperors, throwing out democratic rule. Mainland China is hardly a beacon of democracy, but the parallel is there. The fear is torn down by empowered women with fashion sense, who preserve the free way of life.
One of the problems with great looking HD releases of films is it makes the wires way more apparent than the second generation VHS tapes I first saw the films on. The Heroic Trio had some shots that you could see the wires on even then, but now things are far more obvious in giving away the magic. Still, someone going through and CGing out all the wires would lose some of the charm, so it’s time to learn to live with such things.
In short, The Heroic Trio is a fun action filled adventure that borrows the best elements of decades of Hong Kong and American cinema to create a new classic.
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Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Anita Mui Yim-Fong, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Damian Lau Chung-Yan, Hong Kong, Johnnie To Kei-Fung, Louis Yuen Siu-Cheung, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, martial arts, Michelle Yeoh, Sandy Shaw Lai-King, super heroes, Tony Ching Siu-Tung, Women who kick butt, wuxia, Yen Shi-Kwan
Crouching Sequel, Hidden Problems
A sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has awoken from slumber and possibly snagged Michelle Yeoh to reprise her role of Yu Shu Lien. Fans of wuxia stories will know that Crouching Tiger is actually the fourth book in a series. The fifth book Silver Vase, Iron Knight is what will become the next feature. The Weinstein Company is behind this new film, having secured the rights of Wang Du-Lu’s Crane-Iron Series (though it seems Wang’s heirs aren’t happy at the amount of money, so expect some lawsuits eventually!) and are bringing Ronny Yu to direct the sequel, with John Fusco (The Forbidden Kingdom) having written the script.
Fusco says
“This introduces a new generation of star-crossed lovers, and a new series of antagonists in a battle of good and evil. It has a Knights Errant quality. There is an alternate universe in the books, a martial forest that exists alongside the real world, full of wandering sword fighters, medicine men, defrocked priests, poets, sorcerers and Shaolin renegades. It’s so vast and rich, and I found characters from the second and third books in the series to create a most interesting stew while being as true to the source material as I could be.”
How good this ends up being will be a mystery, though I seriously doubt it will approach Crouching Tiger in quality. I say that not as a pessimist, but a realist. I can be perfectly fine on its own laurels, but it will be burdened with the association to the original classic.
Categories: Movie News Tags: John Fusco, Michelle Yeoh, Silver Vase Iron Knight, Weinstein Company
The Lady – Michelle Yeoh/Aung San Suu Kyi poster
When Michelle Yeoh isn’t getting banned from Burma while making a biofilm about the life of activist Aung San Suu Kyi, she’s getting posterized! Artist Shepard Fairey did a work on Aung San Suu Kyi, and has now done a version with Michelle Yeoh’s face for the upcoming Luc Besson film The Lady.
Categories: Movie News Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, Luc Besson, Michelle Yeoh, Shepard Fairey
Michelle Yeoh returning to martial arts genre with Jianyu Jianghu
Michelle Yeoh is stepping back into the martial world and playing an assassin in the upcoming film Jianyu Jianghu, (translated: Rain Of Swords In The Martial Arts World.) John Woo is co-directing along with Su Chao-pin (Silk.) Filming is expected to begin next week, so hopefully we’ll have something cool to report soon.
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Categories: Movie News Tags: Jianyu Jianghu, John Woo, Michelle Yeoh