Les Anges de la mort

This is a surprisingly important film, representing the break between Hong Kong studios production of Martial Arts movies and the contemporary action/adventure yarns that would dominate the industry in the 1980's. Within THAT subgenre , the "girls-n-guns" motif became one of the most reliable (some would say cliched) breadwinners for the HK industry. This, produced in 1976, was one of the first, and for my money one of the best! There's a plot in there somewhere about a diamond smuggling operation, but this one works if you check your logic circits at the door and enjoy the spectacle of some great looking athletic young women doing battle with the usual assortment of one-dimentional sadistic triad bosses. Kind of similar to Charlie's Angels from US television, except their "Bosley" is the lovely Evlynn Kraft of 'Mighty Peking Man' fame...it's a good thing for everyone that no one tried to fit David Doyle into some of Kraft's hot pants and go go boots outfits! If you can find this one....check it out!

Before "Yes, Madam" (1985), "In The Line of Duty" (1986) and "Kill Bill" (2003), one of the best examples of the "Girls 'N Guns" genre movies was the little known action film "Deadly Angels" (AKA Bod Squad). This Shaw Brother's produced film at first glance seems to lend itself out to be a direct ripoff of the American TV show "Charlie's Angels". But unlike those angels, this trio of beautiful detectives were veritable "wild cats" who would savagely punch, kick and shoot their way out of any situation. The composition of the team was quite unique for the time and represented a diverse Asian mix (a HK Police Woman, A Japanese Undercover Cop and a Korean Security Agent). What also made these gals unique from their American counterparts were their skills. Not only were they experts with both conventional and "James Bond" inspired exotic weaponry (mini Crossbows, exploding earrings, spiked ball and chains) but these ladies were each a master at some different Martial Art skill. The gritty look and feel of the movie reminds me of Toei Studio's similar "Sister Street Fighter" (Onna Hissatsu Ken) movies (1973-1975) and the Japanese cult TV show "Playgirl" (1969) which also told the story of a group of capable female private investigators. The alluring Evelyn Kraft also makes an appearance as the leader of this group of girls, although we don't get to see very much of her in action. This was one of my favorite films as a kid and it is a shame that this film has not yet made it out on DVD. One can only hope that when it does, that this film will attract new fans and get the attention it so richly deserves.

This has always been one of my favorite Shaw films. There is plenty of action, regardless of previous reviews... Of course, the best sequence is the finale... There are at least four fight sequences in between before the finale... as the story builds up.

The story is simple, a trio of female cops, along with a blonde bombshell Interpol agent attempt to stop a murderous gang of diamond theives. There is some nudity, not much but some and, as I stated before, plenty of action.

This movie has yet to be released in a remastered version... Celestial which owns the Shaw library still has not released this film as they have with the majority of the Shaw library... I don't know why. I've asked, but they simply say, in the works...

The only available version is a cropped, VHS english dubbed version with Greek subtitles... in the 84 minute uncut version. I believe there is an English version with no Greek subs available... but not sure. This is a hard to find, mega rare title... A definite collectors item for any Shaw fan...

Highly recommended!

A vicious gang of jewel thieves is operating in Hong Kong. Using a cabaret as a front they are smuggling jewels all over the orient, and leaving a trail of dead women who acted as couriers. After a jewel robbery leaves a good number of people dead a special all female unit is formed to see if it can get the goods on the robbers.

This Shaw Brothers film is a mess. First off other than the robbery and a training exercise there is really no action for the better part of an hour (if you've seen the trailer your seeing the training exercise and the final battle cut together). When the action finally happens its basically a few short fights followed by a very long battle that caps the film. Its all great stuff of the highest order, but by the time you encounter it its almost too little too late.

The film also makes very little sense outside of the gem smuggling central theme. There's a side story about one of the bad guys who's a knife throwing (as in on stage) sadist with the women but it really doesn't go anywhere. One of the police women is dating the son of the dead owner of the jewelry store that was robbed but that seems more like an after thought than anything real. By the time the final battle happens odds are you'll just be watching for the fights, I know I was.

This is only worth seeing if you come in in the middle since thats when all of the fighting starts. It will also give the illusion that the movie makes sense since you can assume you missed something (which you haven't).

For martial arts complete-ists only.

FYI- Two points to note, the trailer for this film seems to contain different footage from the film. It maybe the result of the print I saw which was dubbed into English and subtitled in Greek, but I didn't see anyone drive a motorcycle through a wall.

Secondly early on when the all female unit is formed we see several photographs of the dead couriers. One them is of a woman who is killed later in the movie by the knife wielding sadist.

Deadly Angels is an entertaining movie, but it could have been better. The movie presents us with three very attractive female officers who go undercover to stop some criminals. The three women are experts at the martial arts, And each has a particular weapon she uses to fight with. The movie's premise starts out good (in showing the three angels has unbeatable femme fatales) but later shows the agents as not so unbeatable. That's where I think the movie went wrong. The angels should have been unbeatable all the way through. I want to talk about a particular scene of the movie which illustartes my point so you may not want to read on. The scene is early in the movie where the three agents (one Chinese, one Korean, one Japanese) are called upon to display to their superior officers that are truly tough policewomen. So, the three agents have to show some shooting skills as a team. That part is okay. But then the three agents are confronted with male attackers. This is the best part of the movie because the angels show how ferocious their fighting skills are. No, women are not the weaker sex. The Chinese agent easily kicks and chops her opponent. The Korean agent,wearing long black boots, delivers an impressive kicking performance, by sweep-kicking her male opponent, trying to stomp him, and eventually giving him a kick in the chest. The sexiest agent is the Japanese agent, named Liu Ping. She is also (in my opinion) the toughest of the three agents. Liu-Ping is attacked by two attackers. In a instant, Liu -Ping is shown grabbing one (overweight) attacker by the arm and delivering a judo flip. As the overweight attacker gets tossed like a garbage bag by the smaller policewoman, another attacker attempts to dleiver a hand blow. Liu-Ping, however, stops his punch with one arm and delivers a rocketing kick to the man's chest. The director shows a nice frontal view of her nice leg and foot going to whack her opponent. The man someone gets up again ,but is obviously sill feeling the impact of her high-heeled shoe. He tries to attack her again, but Liu-Ping stops his feeble blow and delivers a quick punch in his lower stomach. As he falls over in pain, Liu-Ping quickly turns around and grapples with the overweight attacker again. He tries to overtake her with some hand chops, but she is obviously too fast and just as strong (if not stronger). She slaps away at his arms. The director does a nice job of showing a close-up of the furious contact as her red-nailed fingers stop the man's attack. After this, the men regroup and pull out some knives and charge at the three women. The Chinese woman flips her attacker with her foot and proceeds to pull out a spiked-ball weapon. She easily wins. The Korean agent delivers a kick to the head and pumps her opponent with three shoots from a cross-bow weapon. Once again, Liu-Ping delivers the strongest and most feminine performance. She takes off one of her shoes and beats her two attackers. After taking off her shoe, she adeftly whacks the overweight attacker by hitting him once in the leg and once in the back. As he reels from the blows, the other attacker tries to close in on Liu-Ping. But she uses her shoe to whack at his arm (with the knife in hand). The two attackers end up on each side of Liu-Ping and try to draw their knives on her. But Liu-Ping, once again, is too quick and strong. She blocks their arms (with the knives) with her arms and simultaneously hits the two attackers. The smaller attacker gets planted with her shoe in the chest and the overweight attacker receives a fist in the chest. As the two clumsy atackers get sent falling over the edge of the fighting plane, the director gives a nice close-up of Liu-Ping taking apart her shoe to make a slingshot weapon with her earnings as explosive bombs (what imagination)! She slings a bomb past the two attackers who franactically jump out of the way. The earings end up explode a shack behind them. Liu-Ping then smiles pleasantly and rejoins the other two women. I feel that up to this point, the movie was great. But later on the angels are not shown as dominant fighters. They end up getting scenes where they are just barely able to survive confrontations. This is where the movie suffers.