Hei lu

This is an early Angela Mao flick that might be the first that wasn't made by Golden Harvest. The quality of this movie is several notches below that of ones made by Golden Harvest. First it's obviously made in the old school Hong Kong movie style. Not the more modern style of Golden Harvest that has stylish characters and beautiful cinematography. The characters in the story has no class as is usually was with characters in the '70s kung fu action movies.

There is one significant thing here though. This is the first movie that shows Angela Mao with her signature long pony tail ! She's also starting to develop her signature kung fu action style. I'm wondering if the fight director of this movie had any influence on her. She's also dressed in the familiar Chinese worker's clothing that we see her wearing in her future movies.

Looking at this movie, one thing is obvious. Raymond Chow, and Golden Harvest had significant influence on the future direction of Hong Kong cinema. He obviously "got it" about how to modernize Hong Kong movie making style. This is an old school Hong Kong movie. Compare it to the likes of "Angry River", and the "Eight Invincibles" that also features Angela Mao, and you'll see what a leap Golden Harvest's movies were at the time.

"Yes", because Angela Mao is indeed a doll, and pretty deadly in this one. "No", because there are too many side characters taking away the focus from Angela - don't get me wrong, they all can fight, but in a movie called "Deadly China Doll" you expect the female lead to be the one central figure. The plot is muddled, the DVD transfer is poor, the editing is often bad, but the fighting is generally pretty good (though the characters' jumping around as if they had springs on their shoes can get tiresome) and constitutes the only reason to see this movie. Angela has 3 fight scenes in total: her most ferocious expressions and moves come at the 10-minute climax, but my favorite is her first, where she goes against a guy at least twice her size. (**)