Angel Force (1991)
I have always been bummed out that I missed the 90s video boom of Hong Kong action movie imports in America. I was born in '85 and had pretty limited video stores growing up. Well this viewing experience was a healthy reminder that if I HAD been older/had more access to that golden age, it would have also probably meant watching lots of low-quality copies of low-quality movies in between the good shit.
My current Girls with Guns kick started over a year ago with the fantastic In the Line of Duty I-IV box set from 88 Films. Blu-ray quality picture, multiple edits of each film available, newly translated subtitles, and obviously the films are fantastic. From there I have found a number of other GwG movies on disc, streaming, or elsewhere online. Most of them have decent-to-great video quality, thanks to various companies restoring and releasing them, or intrepid people keeping Laserdisc rips out there in the ether. I frequently choose titles based on connections to other movies or positive reviews from letterboxd, so the quality of the movies themselves has also been decent-to-great.
Angel Force is NOT streaming on any of the cult movie sites. The DVD listed on Amazon is 20 years old and has a cover that looks like it was created by someone protesting the fact that they were forced to use photoshop:
I couldn't even find a rip of it on my favored rare movie sites. So, when I saw it streaming on Tubi I figured I should watch before it disappears back into library rights oblivion. It had Moon Lee and "Angel" in the title, how bad could it be?
Real bad. And the version Tubi is streaming is dubbed and looks like dogshit. I have been spoiled by the availability of these movies and information about them. Other than the fact that my current 65-inch TV would have been impossibly huge and expensive back then, this felt like renting a random VHS based purely on genre and star and then being disappointed for the better part of 90 minutes, except for the few cool moments you are straining your eyes to see through the poor picture quality (although the soft blur of VHS would be slightly more pleasant than the digital noise of modern ripped/streaming copies).
This is the first GwG flick so far where my attention has frequently wandered while watching, and it started early. There are too many scenes for plot and character while both those things remain paper thin. Bland gunplay with none of the style, energy, or skill I want from Hong Kong action. Fights are stronger, but there aren't enough of them. Even stunts and explosions feel limited and muted (with a few exceptions). I read somewhere that these "jungle mission" GwG movies are the lower budget ones because it was cheaper than shooting in Hong Kong. That definitely feels like the case here. The big action centerpiece features them blowing up: a car that looked abandoned, a wooden guard tower (aka one of the oldest/cheapest pyro stunts), and a model of a helicopter on strings. The opening shootout/fight also qualified this movie for my "cardboard boxes were harmed in the making of this film" list, another warning sign of cheapness.
This is more "men on a mission" movie than "girls with guns." Those men are mostly interchangeable and boring, and we spend too long with them before (and surprisingly after) the mission. Moon is the only gal on the team. The movie briefly comes alive around the 38-minute mark after an assassination attempt on Moon's boss. Moon pursues, and after point blank headshotting a dude she takes on a cute biker chick assassin. IMDB and letterboxd seem spotty on this movie, but based on some genre websites it seems like this is Fujimi Nadeki aka Fujimi Takajo (last seen fighting Moon Lee in Killer Angels!).
All of a sudden, the camera is moving with the performers, the performers are moving through and over the environment, and the director and editor remember that kicks are supposed to look cool. A minute later biker chick is killed.
Another (unfortunate) notable moment comes when the loose cannon of our team of "heroes" tries to rape a female enemy combatant during the mission. He tears her clothes open (Tubi has this listed as TV-PG, lol) before everyone else stops him and he gets pissy about it. Making it even more disturbing, the soundtrack briefly plays what I would qualify as "sexy saxophone music" during the attempted assault, then "sad saxophone" as he storms away after he is stopped! Oh yeah, and later the attempted rapist gets to "redeem" himself by saving Moon's life. WTF, movie? A few minutes after the assault, the woman tries to escape captivity and is killed.
That big climactic mission turns out to be mostly a bust, action-wise, and then it turns out it isn't even the climax! There is still something like 20 minutes left and the team go back to Hong Kong. Eventually the bad guys come seeking revenge, specifically prolific bad guy actor Shing Fui-On. He fights Moon in the only other part of this movie worth a damn. It is ludicrous even by Hong Kong standards that Moon keeps fighting after being shot and slashed multiple times, but at least it distinguishes this from the endless generic action beats that preceded it. It is a decent fight, but among the tradition of Hong Kong movies that make you wait until the climax for the best action, this one is NOT worth the time investment. If that final fight and the brief bout with Fujimi are available in clip form online, that is all that needs to be seen/remain of this movie. This one doesn't need to be re-discovered or restored, a shitty dub and muddy VHS picture are perfectly adequate for any completionists that watch this. I am sure if I keep binging GwG movies I will see worse than this, but for now this is my nadir.
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