Last Updated on January 16, 2022 by rob
After foiling an assassination attempt on a middle eastern dignitary, Sgt Wu (Sibelle Hu) is ordered to whip an all female commando squad into shape. But personal and professional rivalries with the all male Tiger squad training in the same camp mean the girls have their work cut out for them. When both teams are assigned to protect a jewellery show and the Tigers end up taken hostage by the bad guys it’s up to the girls to save both the jewels and their men!
Entertaining and charming combination of action with slapstick comedy featuring an ensemble cast of female action stars comprising familiar names (Shaw Bros veteran Kara Hui, American martial arts ass kicker Cynthia Rothrock amongst them) with newbies like Ann Bridgewater and Ellen Chan both of whom would go on to similar roles in other films. Although this plays mostly as a good-natured battle of the sexes comedy set in and around a training camp the film boasts two fast and furious action sequences which top and tail the movie. The opener has Middle Eastern dignitaries attacked by assassins on a visit to a film set with Hu and Rothrock (the latter billed as Madam Law) saving the day and it’s a blast to watch. One thing you very quickly notice about these Hong Kong action movies is that the camera doesn’t give the actors a lot of help in terms of breaking the action up into lots of itty bitty little pieces.
Sibelle Hu’s close quarters fight with a couple of ninjas really has you admiring the courage of a gal who’s dodging punches and ducking roundhouse kicks that though no doubt carefully choreographed could easily knock her senseless if they connected. The action scenes were reportedly choreographed by Jackie Chan’s stunt team and the acrobatic fighting and painful looking stunts indeed bear the hallmark of the Chan style. And Cynthia Rothrock looks awesome whether touting a large Magnum, interrupting the arc of a flung grenade with a breathtaking back kick, or making clever use of a walking stick to deal with a troublesome opponent. It’s a terrific opener and my hat’s off to Sibelle Hu (or more likely her stunt double) who in the middle of the action does a 40 foot jump from a first floor balcony straight onto a wagon, rolls off, then pulls out a gun and looses off several shots – all in a single take, no camera cuts. Pretty fantastic.
We’d love to see more of this (and of Rothrock who drops out of the pic almost entirely before returning for the finale) but because Madame Wu’s recruits turn out to be such a likeable bunch we really don’t mind hanging out with them as they bond, train and deal with assorted personal issues. The stand out here is Sandra Kwan as the ungainly Amy. She’s the butt of many of the film’s funniest gags which invariably revolve around her inability to get a date. You have to laugh when the canteen cook instructs each girl in the line to turn up at the roller disco that night for a date with the Tigers but clams up tight when he sees Amy. “Aren’t you even going to ask me for a date”, she asks forlornly. The cook’s response? To hand her some slimming pills!! Chin’s film weaves in a couple of will they-won’t they romances. One between Madame Wu and her Tiger Squad counterpart Inspector Kan (the always entertaining Stanley Fung, whose air of authority completely collapses whenever he’s in the presence of Madame Wu), the other between the gorgeous Jean (Ellen Chan) and the handsome Ah Man (Alex To).
Watching Ah Man burst into a supposedly impromptu yet quite outrageously choreographed musical number at the disco as he attempts to woo Jean is an absolute hoot and typical of the film’s everything and the kitchen sink approach to giving you a good time. It’s great fun and I really enjoyed it not least because there’s no meanness in all this. The story emphasises girly courage and camaraderie and its battle of the sexes subplot is both amusing and – in the martial arts competition between the Banshees and the Tigers in which the men are knocking the women down and then panicking they might really have hurt them – really rather charming in its display of old-fashioned chivalry. The movie regards both sexes with affection and if you’re not won over when the Banshees meet for the first time and mutual wariness gives way to instant bonding over – of all things – a wrinkle cream(!), then you will be when the girls list the Tiger Squad’s many faults after they’re asked for a date, “Their dirty language, abusive jokes, wolfish looks ..” “Are we going then?” asks one, “Of course, why not?” comes the reply!
Amongst all this merriment there’s a fair sprinkling of physical action as the girls tackle assault courses, practice machine gunning terrorists while abseiling down walls, beat the living crap out of a chancer named Peter whom they discover has been using the same chat up lines on them) and in one delightfully bonkers moment learn how to run really fast because the path they’re on has been soaked in gasoline and set ablaze! It all leads to a climax at a fashion show (Ellen Chan dolled up to the nines and looking absolutely scorching here) in which villain Jeffrey Falcon’s Eagle Claw style faces off against Rothrock’s Monkey Kung-Fu. It’s all too short alas but while it lasts it’s wonderful and Falcon ends up receiving a hellacious battering from the enraged Banshees for his pains. A smash hit on release, at least four sequels in more or less descending order of merit followed. Unfortunately the follow up stories are scrappy affairs with the action pretty much restricted to the girls standing around passively firing guns. Given an end credits outtakes reel from the first film which shows the girls tripping and falling and the likes of Ellen Chan, Jeff Falcon and others taking actual blows to the face during mistimed fight scenes you have to wonder if it was in some way a condition of further films that the actresses wouldn’t have to do such physically demanding stuntwork. At any rate the original remains the best of the bunch.
