Angel Terminators (1992)
Angel Terminators is a highly entertaining but particularly nasty and bleak Girls with Guns/Chicks with Kicks movie. It has a surprising amount of character relationships driving the plot, but it still delivers frequent high-energy action scenes. I appreciated all the people flipping, flying, or flung into/off of the various fight locations. Lots of diving around or hanging out of vehicles shooting. The acrobatic environmental moves and insert shots/editing reminded me of Corey Yuen’s GwG movies, if not quite as well executed. I still appreciate the effort and put the action above the other mid-tier GwG movies I have been watching.
Crime boss Zeng (Kenneth Tsang) watches Carrie (Carrie Ng, Naked Killer) sing in a nightclub, ignoring warnings from his men about encroaching law enforcement. Eventually he leaves, as a tear rolls down her face (oh girl, if only you knew what was coming…). Cops Ida (Sharon Yeung Pan Pan) and Hung (Kara Hui) are among those pursuing Zeng and his men in a dangerous shooting car chase. After casualties on both sides, Zeng escapes.
Seven years later, Hung is preparing to leave for special training at Scotland Yard. On the way to the airport, she and Ida stop to foil a hostage situation, as one does. Carrie is now a married homemaker to Hung’s cousin, Ida and Hung’s police Lieutenant. Zeng returns from Thailand under a false name and begins a violent reclamation of his power. I was excited to see one of his main enforcers is Miss Nishiwaki (Michiko Nishiwaki, In the Line of Duty III). Here she frequently rocks an uzi and stylish clothes, but unfortunately she never busts her own guns out for any gratuitous flexing (see youtube clip from My Lucky Stars). Inter-criminal conflict and police involvement escalate while melodramatic subplots percolate.
Turns out the Lieutenant has a gambling problem and ends up with a big debt and accompanying marital strife. Zeng extorts him into betraying his fellow cops while separately also using it to force the Lieutenant’s wife Carrie into sleeping with him again. This is why married couples need to communicate! As if that wasn’t sadistic enough, Zeng later humiliates Carrie by shoving her head in a toilet and pissing on her in a genuinely upsetting scene. I have been watching various Hong Kong Category III and Japanese Pinky Violence movies lately and have seen significantly more disturbing stuff in those, but that is a known quantity when you choose to watch one. This scene was short and far less graphic, but for a Girls with Guns movie that isn’t going full Cat III (i.e. something like Naked Killer) it was unpleasant and surprising. If you are still reading after that AND still considering watching this movie, go do it before I spoil the ending here.
SERIOUSLY GOING TO SPOIL THE LAST ACT AND FINAL MINUTES BELOW
Then things get DARKER! Zeng has the Lieutenant killed, frames Ida for it, takes her prisoner AND gets her strung out on drugs. Eventually Carrie gets killed helping Ida escape, and Ida hides out with her sex worker informant friend who helps her kick the junk. Meanwhile, Hung has returned from Scotland Yard and eventually finds Ida and convinces her to try and clear her name. That results in a classic compound raid and the ladies’ final showdown with an old friend Zeng called into town, none other than the villainous Dick Wei (Yes, Madam and In the Line of Duty III). During the sadly brief but still badass fight with Wei, Zeng escapes in his car. Ida runs and leaps onto a wire over the road, and Zeng pulls out a gun and shoots her in the chest! She manages to get positioned to slice his throat as he drives under her. She dies hanging and bleeding as his car crashes and explodes behind her. Holy shit.
My wife and I have started joking about the frequency and wild variety of freeze-frame endings in many Hong Kong action movies, wondering whether it will be a vigilante killing that damns the shooter like Yes, Madam or Elaine Lui slipping on a banana peel like Fighting Madam/Iron Angels. Either way, when we have a time limit on watching a movie I frequently choose a Girls with Guns flick, promising “90 minutes and a freeze frame and we are OUT!” So after Ida killed Zeng and died, I said “Holy shit, is this going to be our freeze frame?” Nope. NO freeze frame. The footage of Ida’s limp, bloody body hanging in front the billowing smoke from the exploded car just keeps playing while the credits roll. Just letting you sit there in that moment and suffer for a minute. Goddamn.
Note: there is one particularly bonkers stunt in this that looked like it wrecked a man. During the construction site fight, Ida throws one of the head minions over the railing. I immediately assumed it was a dummy because it looks like a huge drop. Then the body hits a bulldozer halfway down and it becomes obvious it is definitely NOT a dummy from the way they impact and tumble to the ground. All in one long shot. I hope that guy was able to walk again at some point, geez.
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