|
Written by Larry Clow
|
|
Wednesday, 12 July 2006 |
China Entertainment Films, 1993
starring: Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui and Yee Kwan Yan
directed by: Johnny To
the plot: In China, an invisible assailant invades hospitals and steals babies! When the infant son of a police captain is kidnapped, the masked heroine known as Shadow Fox (Mui) arrives on the scene to save the baby, but her daring rescue attempt fails and the baby is spirited away. The police then call in the help of Thief Catcher (Cheung), a tough, spunky bounty hunter with a penchant for shotguns and dynamite. When Thief Catcher kidnaps a baby of her own to use as bait, she attracts Shadow Fox’s ire. The two women fight, but while they’re distracted, the invisible kidnapper strikes again! Soon, the two make amends and discover that the kidnapper is none other than Ching (Yeoh), Shadow Fox’s long lost sister. Ching is stealing the babies for her demonic master (Yan), who plans to make one of the infants his successor. After a series of battles across the city, Ching sees the error of her ways and decides to team up with Shadow Fox and Thief Catcher in a desperate bid to destroy the demon.
why it’s good: On a conceptual level, “Heroic Trio” makes perfect sense: hot chicks riding motorcycles and doing wire-fu moves in brightly colored superhero costumes. It’s a can’t-miss formula. Of course, plot-wise, “Heroic Trio” makes no sense at all. The film is a narrative mess—there are unannounced flashbacks, random action sequences and the dubbing is so bad that it’s almost impossible to keep up with any of the dialogue. But just when you’re about to give up and watch something else, Cheung, Yeoh and Mui start fighting some demonic kung-fu guy who uses a birdcage to decapitate people, and you’re hooked again. The climax is the sort of out-of-control ridiculousness one expects but is never really prepared for: exploding children, intense wire-fu stunts, evil mind-controlling skeletons and other assorted weirdness. Best probably-mistranslated-line: “I’m going to need your help, so don’t pee on me.”
why you should own it: How can you not want to own “Heroic Trio”? Miramax’s DVD version is widely available, but contains only the movie and a bad English dub. It’s worth tracking down Image Entertainment’s 1997 region-free release, which features English subtitles and some assorted extras.
|
Home
News
Features
Music
Film
Art
Literary
Food
Stage
Outside
All Stories
