Miao jie shi san mei

Angel Of Vengeance is about some girl doing a report on brothels while some broad is searching for her sister who happens to work at a brothel all awhile dealing with a bunch of gangsters. This one is going to be a hard one to assess because I am in a quandary as to whether I like this one or not. This is a modern-day martial arts action rapesploitation movie. One of my major issues with this movie is that some of the rape scenes were drawn out for far too long taking up a good chunk of the film slowing the pacing to a halt. Plus rape in film, in general, makes me cringe even if it is dramatized. On the plus side, however, they did play happy 80s new wave music with some banjo on one of them and the theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street on another. So there is some levity, I suppose. Also some of the (intentional) comedic scenes like these retarded stalkers, for example, were worthless. And finally the action sequences were a bit too far in between. Now, even with the flaws I do like Angel Of Vengeance and it mostly pertains to the last 15 minutes because it is completely insane and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to the entire aspects of the film. Some guy can define gravity with this cat kung fu, some guy pulls a bow and arrow out of his @$$ and kills people and a blind kung fu broad. Da' hell? So my final assertion? I don't know. This one kicked my nuts into my throat. Sigh......

I really wanted to love this film a bit more than I actually did. While its not terrible, the thought of having 3 great leads such as ultimate ninja Alexander Lo Rei, Yukari Oshima and Alex Fong (with the latter 2 having starred alongside each other in the incredible Iron Angels of course), Angel Of Vengeance got me excited...

Unfortunately, this 1993 action thriller proves to be more of a low-budget 80's style mess, with low production values, bizarre soundtrack, crazed action, and often seems like it is 2 different movies roughly knitted together!

Supposedly a revenge thriller about Yukari searching for her sister, who we learn has been sold to a brothel by a crazed gang boss played with glee by the great Chung Fat - the Osh joins forces with the 2 Alexander's to get her back. Running alongside that is the sub-plot about a student who is writing a thesis on 'love and lust' and decides to research this by going undercover, dressed poorly as a man, in her mothers brothel. Of course, the connection is that Yukari's sister has been sold to the very same brothel.

Angel of Vengeance will hardly go down as a classic, but may certainly be remembered for its cool fight scenes. I say cool, but I also want to say confused! They go from nicely choreographed, hand-to-hand grounded action (although where Alex Fong pulls a bow and arrow from is anyone's guess), to scenes of Chung Fat defying gravity with his 'cat-style' kung-fu, leaping and spinning through the air which looks like he just stepped out from Last Hero In China (of which he was in the same year), and forgot he was in a new production. Alongside that, his blind hench-woman, played by To Gwai Fa, who moves faster than the speed of light and looks like Yuen Tak in Dragon From Russia in her costume. While a bit bizarre for such a modern thriller, I can't help but get tickled by such madness and as I've mentioned before, its one of the reasons I fell in love with Hong Kong cinema in the first place. Sometimes though, its just done better than others...

Action director Cheung Chung Kwai hasn't been behind a lot of fight choreography, but has starred in many kung-fu classics from the early 70's, and some with Alexander Lo Rei and Sammo Hung. Angel Of Vegeance would be director Robert Lau's last film. Other works of his include the fun Visa To Hell with Dick Wei and Chin Siu Ho, and the fun Life Is A Bet (aka Triad Assassinator) with Alexander Lo Rei.

Overall: Its messy, its confused, its short on action, and has to much gratuitous rape scenes, but fans of the leads should give it a watch at least once.