Rhapsodies

Since last week’s selection was a little artsier than I expected, I decided to clear my palette with total fluff. I went with a small handful of superhero films from Hong Kong. (Quick note, for the sake of this post I mean taking place in the modern day an wearing a costume. If I included period films just about half the WuXia films out there could count.)

The inspiration for this week’s theme came from last week’s Irma Vep, where we’re shown clips of Maggie Cheung in Johnnie To’s Heroic Trio. So I thought what the heck.

Heroic Trio tells the story of three powerful crime fighters (well actually one of them starts out as one of the villains  but changes her mind ) Wonder Woman (no not that one) (Anita Mui), Thief Taker (Maggie Cheung) and The Invisible Girl (not that one either) (Michelle Yeoh). 

Babies are being kidnapped for nefarious reasons, and it’s up to our heroines to stop them. (Provided they don’t kill each other first.)

This was fluff. The plot was pretty much a way to link all of the wirework fight scenes together. Still, it was charming in one of those so bad it’s good kind of ways with Cheung stealing the show as the dynamite chucking Thief Taker.

Because Scarecrow only had the sequel to Heroic Trio I ended up picking up that one and watched the original online.

Heroic Trio 2: The Executioners takes a couple of years later after a nuclear war. The team’s been disbanded with Wonder Woman retired raising a daughter. Because of the war, there’s a water shortage which the government is trying to use to stay in power, while a mysterious figure is trying to use the crisis to cause a coup. Once again it’s time for the trio to settle their differences and save the day.

Regrettably, this one was even worse than the first one with none of the original film’s charm

The second film on my list, Jingle Ma’s Silver Hawk, opens with Michelle Yeoh as the titular character in a battle against panda smugglers. This pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film.

Silver Hawk is a mysterious masked motorcyclist who fights crime. In the process, she finds herself at odds with the police led by police commissioner  Rich Man (yes really) played by Richie Jen. Man turns out to be a childhood friend of her secret identity, Lulu Wong, who still regrets them being separated when she left the martial arts school they were attending to get better training elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a mysterious villain named Wolfe (Luke Goss) is kidnapping scientists and CEO’s to carry out his evil scheme to take over the world. It’s up to Silver Hawk to save the day.

While this one had a lot better production values than the first two films it wasn’t really that much better. It’s saving grace is it didn’t take it’self too seriously. The two main fights in the film involved mooks on bungee chords for the first one and ones with futuristic armor with rollerblades and hockey sticks. I think the best way is to look at it as a modern-day version of the sixties Batman TV show… but I’ll take Michelle Yeoh over Adam West anytime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXfNg6NN3C4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovQyOz57oDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcp-Ek1aPYI

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