Solid Hong Kong journeyman director Tony Liu united ‘Girls with Guns’ mainstays Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima and Sibelle Hu three times, in 1993 in the minor classic Angel Terminators II, the comedy The Big Deal in 1992, and before that, the rock solid actioner Dreaming the Reality. In it, Lee and Oshima play Silver Fox and Black Cat, two assassins trained to kill since childhood by ruthless mob boss Fok (Eddy Ko). Though Black Cat is unwavering in her missions, Silver Fox is starting to feel the weight of the deaths she’s caused on her conscience. One day on a mission gone wrong in Thailand, she loses her memory after taking a nasty fall while escaping the police. She wakes with no memory of who she is, and is helped by wry ex-cop Si Lan-Fa (Sibelle Hu) and her brother Rocky (Ben Lam), a boxer. But Black Cat is on her blood sister’s trail, tasked by Fok with bringing her back into the fold.
All posts tagged sibelle hu
DREAMING THE REALITY (1991) review
Posted by LP Hugo on March 19, 2020
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2020/03/19/dreaming-the-reality-1991-review/
BURY ME HIGH (1991) short review
Tsui Siu Ming’s Bury Me High is an interesting mix of action and fantasy, along unusual lines, using feng shui as not just a plot point, but a full-blown narrative stake. It concerns a burial ground in a mountainous region of a Asian banana republic, whose unique feng shui location guarantees immense wealth to those interred there. A corporate executive (Moon Lee), a feng shui scholar (Tsui Siu Ming) and a hacker (Chin Kar Lok, stretching belief as popular hero Wisely, who is said to have an IQ of 200) go in search of this location, but they have to contend with the republic’s cruel new dictator (Yuen Wah, quite superb), who covets the burial ground to strengthen his power and wealth; his sister (Sibelle Hu) is more conflicted. There’s a very enjoyable sweep and ambition to the film, unfolding against majestic Vietnamese locations, and lavishing special care on its action scenes, which are scarce for the first two thirds, but plentiful in the final 30 minutes. A night fight on a rickety bridge unfolds in the middle of a vast torch-bearing circle of soldiers, there’s a full-blown battle scene involving tanks, and Yuen Wah and Chin Kar Lok’s amazing agility makes their final fight a thing of beauty, especially when the great Moon Lee cuts in. It is a lopsided film that doesn’t engage until its final tier, and the feng shui stakes are often a bit abstruse, but the finale is worth the wait. **1/2
Posted by LP Hugo on March 2, 2017
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2017/03/02/bury-me-high-1991-short-review/
DEVIL HUNTERS (aka ULTRA FORCE 2) (1989) review
Released just a few months after Killer Angels, Devil Hunters was also directed by Tony Liu and was in some places released as a sequel to that film (under the risible title Ultra Force). Of course, there are no narrative connections between the two films, as Devil Hunters follows a vicious gangster (Francis Ng) who will stop at nothing to find his boss’s stash of diamonds. But on his way are policemen (Alex Man and Sibelle Hu), as well as his boss’s daughter (Moon Lee) and former second-in-command (Michael Chan Wai Man), now gone good. It’s a slightly uninvolving plot, that valiantly tries to create surprises in a genre that rarely contained any, narratively speaking. But it ends up feeling muddled, despite Tony Liu’s usual above-average attention to characters and drama: Michael Chan is touching as a reformed gangster inevitably drawn back to violence, while Sibelle Hu and Alex Man have an interesting – if under-developped – tough love relationship.
Posted by LP Hugo on February 24, 2017
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2017/02/24/devil-hunters-aka-ultra-force-2-1989/
THE MASTER STRIKES BACK (1985) review
Part of the Shaw Brothers’ last batch of films before it ceased big screen productions at the end of 1985, The Master Strikes Back was directed by Sun Chung, who gave the legendary studio some of its most memorable and/or masterful films, like The Drug Connection (1976) and its transposition of Blaxploitation tropes to Hong Kong cinema, The Kung Fu Instructor (1979) and its then-unprecedented use of steadycam to film fights, the unhinged cult horror film Human Lanterns (1982) and more importantly The Avenging Eagle (1978), one of the jewels in the Shaw Brothers crown. Here Ti Lung plays Tong Tie-Cheng, a military instructor (closely resembling his Kung Fu Instructor character) who arrives in a town with his son (Fan Siu Wong) to help an old friend (Ku Feng) whip the soldiers of his garrison back into shape. The town’s main source of business is its brothel, where the soldiers have taken the habit of spending their nights. Tong starts submitting them to a harsh training and forbids them to indulge in whoring. But while it earns him their respect, at first begrudging then undivided, it also threatens to put the brothel out of business, and thus makes him a nightmare for the town’s corrupt chief constable (Michael Chan Wai Man), who co-owns it. Soon Tong becomes the target of increasingly brutal machinations, including a insidious plot to have his son castrated to become a eunuch. At first reluctant to start a fight, the master is inexorably pushed to the edge.
Posted by LP Hugo on September 24, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/09/24/the-master-strikes-back-1985-review/
ANGEL TERMINATORS II (1993) review
Tony Liu’s Angel Terminators II came out a year after Wai Lit’s Angel Terminators but the only thing the two films have in common is a producer, Georges Lai’s Grandwell Film Production. Other than that, the cast, crew, creative team, characters and general tone are entirely different. The Hong Kong film industry had always had a loose definition of sequelizing, but this is one of the more puzzling title choices. Bullet (Yukari Oshima) just came out of prison after taking the fall for her scummy triad boss (Karel Wong). She is welcomed by her childhood friend Chitty (Moon Lee) and their group of friends, as well as by her estranged cop father (Jason Pai Piao) and his loyal but hot-headed partner (Sibelle Hu, hideously decked in a piss-yellow tracksuit). Bullet aims to get a fresh start in life but things quickly go back to hell when she beats up her former boss who threatened to make Chitty his prostitute, and when one of her friends is drugged and abused by a fake casting agent.
Posted by LP Hugo on September 20, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/09/20/angel-terminators-ii-1993-review/
CRYSTAL HUNT (1991) short review
Shot in Thailand and probably back-to-back with 1992’s Cheetah on Fire which has the same cast and crew, Hsu Hsia’s Crystal Hunt opens on a short and brisk action scene featuring Leung Kar Yan and Gordon Liu (who do not appear again afterwards) that has nothing to do with the plot and serves only to pad out the film’s short runtime. Which tells you everything you need to know about its ambitions. Carrie Ng is the daughter of a terminally ill businessman, whose last hope is a legendary healing crystal hidden deep in the Thai jungle. With her boyfriend (Ken Lo), she tasks a scientist (director Hsu Hsia) with finding the crystal. But the scientist is apprehended by a team of mercenaries (headed by Donnie Yen’s gweilo collaborators John Salvitti and Michael Woods), and soon his daughter (Fujimi Nadeki) goes looking for him with the help of two cops (Donnie Yen and Sibelle Hu). Despite an impressive lack of narrative competency, Crystal Hunt is never boring thanks to a healthy serving of action choreographed with budget-defying skill by Donnie Yen’s team. And everybody in the cast is playing within their comfort zone : Carrie Ng is domineering and slightly insidious, Donnie is badass and a bit puerile, Sibelle Hu is a cute woman of action, Ken Lo is a tool who kicks high… It’s all quite familiar and comforting, if mediocre and unchallenging. **1/2
Posted by LP Hugo on September 12, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/09/12/crystal-hunt-1991-short-review/
RAID ON ROYAL CASINO MARINE (aka THE INSPECTOR WEARS SKIRTS 3) (1990) review
Following a successful first film and an even more successful second film that was basically a carbon copy of its predecessor, Raid on Royal Casino Marine finally mixes up the Inspector Wears Skirts formula. After spending the last two instalments silently longing for her, instructor Kan (Stanley Fung) is now married to Madam Wu (Sibelle Hu), who has retired but not mellowed : to keep fit she always rope-climbs to her hilltop house, and she’s managed to train her housemaid into a killing machine. When the Hong Kong police decides to mount an operation against an illegal gambling operation aboard a cruise ship, five members of the decommissioned female commando (returning actresses Sandra Ng, Kara Hui and Amy Yip plus new additions San Yip and Wong Wai Kei) are brought back into action to infiltrate the ship, but not before they get whipped back into shape by instructor Kan. As with the previous films, the training is actually closer to an escalating series of pranks between the instructor, his scapegoat/assistant (returning Billy Lau from the previous films’ male squad, which doesn’t return), and the five girls. The training ends more quickly, as the film segues into a God of Gamblers rehash (the immensely successful Wong Jing film had come out shortly after the release of The Inspector Wears Skirts II) for a saggy middle section. Then as the ship gets hijacked by its own captain (Michael Chow, who had a different role in the first film in the series), the film gets its obligatory yet perfunctory action finale (in which Kara Hui is unfortunately underemployed) : the Jackie Chan stunt team doesn’t return, and it shows.
Posted by LP Hugo on February 26, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/02/26/raid-on-royal-casino-marine-aka-the-inspector-wears-skirts-3-1990-review/
GHOST PUNTING (1992) review
The fifth and penultimate instalment in the Lucky Stars series, Ghost Punting reunites Sammo Hung as portly and well-meaning Kidstuff, Eric Tsang as borderline retarded Buddha Fruit, Charlie Chin as wannabe-womanizer Herb, Richard Ng as occult-obsessed Sandy and Stanley Fung as misanthropic Rhino Hide. These five jobless, hapless and horny losers, who share an appartment and an ever-thwarted goal to get laid, encounter the ghost of a man who’s been murdered by his wife’s lover, a violent mob boss. They report it to their old friend officer Hu (a cameoing Sibelle Hu, back after My Lucky Stars and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars), who assigns a squad of beautiful lady cops (headed by Elaine Lui) to get proof of the paranormal encounter. As the ghost is seemingly visible only to them, the five losers use him to cheat in games of poker, and in return help him exact his revenge.
Posted by LP Hugo on February 10, 2015
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2015/02/10/ghost-punting-1992-review/
THE INSPECTOR WEARS SKIRTS (1988) review
Also known as Top Squad in some countries, The Inspector Wears Skirts was very successful when it came out in 1988, starting a franchise that would yield four films, the first two being produced by Jackie Chan. Three of the four episodes star Sibelle Hu as Madam Wu, an instructor for an elite squad comprised only of women, nicknamed the amazones, and who are supposed to take on missions men can’t, their advantage being based on the fact that women are not usually expected to be elite agents (at least at the time), which can prove useful in situations such as infiltrating a hostage situation. Therefore young women are selected to go to a boot camp under the hard supervision of Madam Wu. All this set up is of course little more than a pretext to get a dozen attractive actresses in a situation of competition and cohabitation, with the added sexual tension brought by the fact that an all-male squad is being trained in the same premises, under the direction of Stanley Fung.
Posted by LP Hugo on July 11, 2012
https://asianfilmstrike.com/2012/07/11/the-inspector-wears-skirts-1988-review/
Top Posts Today
Asian Film Strike 