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千火玫瑰 (1992)
Caged Beauties


Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 05/26/2001
Summary: Mostly awful, but ..........

Half-way through, I was prepared to totally write this film off as complete cheap and exploitative nonsense, and offensive nonsense at that. The only thing I could say in defense of the dreadful brutality toward most of the female characters is that the male victims were treated almost as badly. There is little or no character focus, and the story lurches from one char to another at nearly random intervals.

I rented this film only because I wanted to watch a film with the rarely-seen actress Goo Git in it. She was one of the lovely girls which made the awfully-titled but great fun cheapie Unforgetful Holiday so much fun. Unfortunately, she barely makes it into the story here, and she remains resolutely clothed !

This lumpy film has a few good features. The best is a terrific shower scene, 44 minutes in, which lasts a little over a minute. Generous full views of a number of ladies. Hmmmm, yes ! This short scene is spoilt only by the lower frontal shots rendering the ladies headless in frame.

And the normally very mean Jeff Falcon gets to play a good guy for (I think) the only time in his short HK movie career. He gets in a short fight scene near the start, and is the major character in the extended action climax. He and an uncredited Chinese kickboxer with high cheekbones (can't believe this guy wasn't credited !) are riveting to watch.

And this is the film's other good part. There is about 20 minutes at the end which is full of action, and pretty good action too, flipping between several different actors. Even one of the girls, who previously appeared to be just window dressing, shows she can trade kicks with the musclebound and rather butch To Gai Fa.

So, who'd watch this weird hotch-potch ? Anyone interested in what Chan Sing (he's still great at being really nasty) or Hon Gwok Choi is doing, or watching Jeff Falcom in action, could well enjoy this one enough to rent. Probably a bit of a waste for anyone else.

Reviewer Score: 4