Reviews:Royal Warriors
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| ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS: Bond girl Michelle Yeoh kicks royal butt in this "Yes, Madam!" follow-up that proves she is the action babe of the movies. Yeoh plays Michelle, a Hong Kong policewoman who manages to thwart a hijacking attempt with the help of a Japanese Interpol agent (Henry Sanada) and a security guard (Michael Wong). Two of the hijackers are killed and their remaining friend vows revenge, hunting down the wife and daughter of the Japanese Interpol agent before turning his weapon on Michael, Sanada and Michelle. The two law enforcers join forces in a race to track down the ruthless mercenary before he has a chance at them. "Royal Warriors" is fast-paced and hard-hitting in the tradition of the best Hong Kong action movies. The stylish martial arts scenes and impressive stunts--all stunningly executed by Yeoh and Sanada--make "Royal Warriors" a collectors' item for movie lovers. |
| The plot is pretty straightforward here -- after foiling a mid-air hijacking attempt, a trio of cops team up to bring down a gang of killers who are hell-bent on revenge.
Royal Warriors falls into many of the traps of the genre, such as weak plot motivators (innocent people getting killed inspires the cops, etc.) and a dull romantic subplot. And Michael Wong stinks up every scene he's in (in fact, he's so bad that he's dubbed in both the English and Chinese versions). But Royal Warriors delivers action, and plenty of it. The first action sequence occurs about five minutes into the movie and it rarely lets up from there. The finale has Michelle driving a Road Warrior-esque armored vehicle and then engaging in a duel with a chainsaw-wielding bad guy definitely ranks among the top of Yeoh's action work. Royal Warrior's script, though pretty weak, does allow Yeoh to be a bit tougher than in many of her other films. Though she is still plenty cute, there's a hard edge to her that makes watching what is really a stock character more enjoyable. |
http://www.hkfilm.net
Michelle Yeoh is quite cute and does some great fighting in this film which is considered the first of the "In The Line Of Duty" series (she is replaced by Cynthia Khan in all of the subsequent films). It has all of the action, gunplay, and kung fu that you would expect from this series. Police officers Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, and an ultra-annoying Michael Wong team up to take out a group of violent criminals. Of course, a couple of revenge plots are set up as well.
-Alex In Wonderland (see my profile)
http://www.alex-in-wonderland.com
| Michelle Yeoh continues here as basically the same character from "Yes, Madam!" The action is nearly non-stop allowing the audience only occasional respites to catch their breath until it is on to the next action scene. Michelle gets involved in the film's first action scene when she spots a gang chasing after a youth. She intervenes, of course, and in a wonderfully choreographed sequence shows astonishingly graceful moves while combating the gang with the help of an umbrella (and of course kung fu).
Soon she is on a plane back to HK with Michael Wong as an airplane security man and Henry Sanada (a famous Japanese action star) as a passenger going to reconcile with his wife. Michael Chan is being extradited back to HK and a cohort frees him (with the usual easily smuggled weapons). Michelle, Michael and Henry deter this in another wonderfully staged scene and both hijackers are killed. They come home to a hero's welcome, but unknown to them, two former army friends of the two dead men decide to go after the threesome for revenge. Overall, the action is brutal and intense and in the finale, Michelle's one on one with the villain (Pai Ying) is almost painful to watch. This is a terrific action film that displays to great advantage the amazing fluidity of Michelle's athletic prowess.
Michelle dislocated her shoulder while making this movie. Rick Baker wrote in "The Essential Guide to Deadly China Dolls" that: "The stunt coordinator had one of the guys kick her so hard it made her fall badly, knocking her shoulder out. The pain was so bad that it kept her awake for seven nights, and during this time she was filming continuously." (1996:98-99)) |
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