Tin si hang dung III: Moh lui mut yat

I had higher expectations for this film after reading some of the good reviews, unfortunately it was a big letdown for me.

For those of you, like me, that like classic fu movies, you probably won't especially like this. I should have paid more attention to some of the other reviewers comments about "scenes taken from Bond movies" and "jetpacks with endless ammo machine guns".

Surprising to me, this movie has a higher rating than Lady Whirlwind and other female lead role fu films. I would rather watch The Lady Constables...

I would give this 3 stars just for making it all the way through. Then again... I doubt I would ever watch it again. I found it boring.

Well choreographed fighting is the only real highlight here, as the story is a pastiche of cliches. Worth a look if you're a hardcore fan of the genre, otherwise avoid.

Moon Lee plays a secret agent who joins an assassins' organization in Thailand under cover. Her boss is a lady in black with a pet crocodile. When Moon's transmitter has to be left behind, she loses contact with the Iron Angels team. They don't seem to worry much about her, though. In the middle part of the film, Moon is not on screen for 30 minutes while her colleagues attend a somewhat distracting boxing championship. Fortunately, she returns with a great fight against countless enemies, and there is a bit more ammo spent later on, so the movie doesn't forget what it is about (girls'n'guns).

"Iron Angels 3" is not the best one of the trilogy. Part 1 had the best cast (including Yukari Oshima) and part 2 the best story. Part 3, also without Elaine Lui now, brings in new guys which are rather annoying: the young man assisting Fong and an American nerd called Computer (ouch). I voted 7/7/6 for the trilogy. Note: there is a movie marketed as "Iron Angels 4" in some countries, but that one is not connected to the Iron Angels trilogy, except that Moon Lee is accidentally in it, too. You'll find it under "Jin pai shi jie"/"Princess Madam" here.

A third world terrorist group plan to put a stop to Thailand's rapid economic growth. Special agents The Angels are assigned to prevent them from doing so.

The premise for Iron Angels 3 is about as formulaic as it gets, but that doesn't deter director Stanley Tong from pulling out all the stops to entertain his audience, his film packed from start to finish with amazing fight scenes and incredible ballistic action.

The lovely Moon Lee returns as agent Moon, who goes undercover to get to a knife-wielding, croc-stroking villainess, while Alex Fong as Alex Fong (the film gets no prizes for original character names) immerses himself in the Muay Thai boxing scene, for reasons that I can't remember (not that it matters, this plot-line existing solely to allow for a hard-hitting match between Alex and a very tough opponent).

After loads of well choreographed and expertly executed martial arts scenes in which our heroes square up against countless bad guys, the film closes with a rollicking finale that sees Alex and comedy sidekick Kwai (Ralph Chen) take to the sky on jetpacks with mounted machine guns to mow down scores of henchmen, while Moon battles the villainess to the death.

Also adding to the fun is the silly Bond-style computer expert called-you guessed it-Computer (played by Mark Steinborn), whose high-tech gadgetry is hilarious (check out his impressive bank of diode-blinking computers and the silly mini-bomb detector), an African despot who harshly punishes his inept henchmen (and who goes unapprehended by the end of the film), plus quite a lot of bloodshed, including countless bullet squibs, a spurting knife wound, and a juicy gunshot to the head.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

The Iron Angels (Alex Fong, Moon Lee, Kharina Sa, Fong's new male partner, and another guy called "The Computer" - no sign of Elaine Lui this time) go to Thailand to stop some terrorists. That's pretty much all the plot you need for this one. For pure fighting fans, this is probably the best film in the series. Moon Lee has more fight scenes than in the previous films and looks pretty lethal: one of her best moves is when she jumps on a guy, wraps her legs around his waist, flips backwards, lands on top of him and punches him straight on his face! And Fong has an extended Muay Thai ring match against a local fighter. But shootout fans won't be disappointed, either; a gunfight near the end has an INCREDIBLE body count that easily rivals that of most war movies. The girls-with-guns factor is brought down a little by the absence of Elaine Lui, and the fact that Kharina Sa is given nothing to do, but goes up again with the addition of several female baddies, the leader of whom is a pretty muscular blonde. There are also notable Bond references: we get the female version of the Bond vs. Red Grant train fight in "From Russia With Love" as Moon Lee takes on a Japanese killer lady (who even has shoe-knives!), the blonde villainess pets (not a cat but) a baby croc, and at the end the heroes attack the terrorists on jetpacks like the one Connery used in "Thunderball" - only these are equipped with inexhaustible machine guns! (**1/2)