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魔鬼天使 (2006)
Lethal Angels


Reviewed by: Hyomil
Date: 04/07/2011


Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: ewaffle
Date: 05/07/2010
Summary: Not angels but very lethal

“Lethal Angels” is a police drama full of violence, rape and revenge. Winnie and her protégés aren’t very angelic but they are extremely lethal and efficient with three silent murders in a crowded dance club while being tracked by 15 CCTV cameras and staked out by two Hong Kong detectives. The first killing is in a mirrored back room with a stripper pole and tiny stage. The victim is Big Eye, a loathsome gangster who is enticed, garroted and stabbed using a knife blade that springs from a boot heel. The other two are dispatched on the dance floor which would be a gore hound’s delight. One was gutted like sheep by an Angel using a razor-honed kris while the other was skewered with a long, thin metal rod sharpened to a deadly point. The two detectives, Jet and Darren, missed the entire fracas.

The angels are led by Winnie who, as played by Le Fei, is as deadly and determined as a female praying mantis. The angels have been trained to carry out their murderous missions while ignoring pain and exhaustion, with no second thoughts. They are an impressive bunch who can react when a gun is fired by unsheathing a knife and knocking the oncoming bullet out of the air. With their deadly skills—and none is more skilled than Winnie—and Winnie’s determination to find evil men, expose them and kill them this is a force to be reckoned with. Jet and Darren are a bit out of their depth—actually way out, since Jet remembers Yoyo, one of the assassins in the club, finally recalling that he had a first date with her on the night that her entire family (and Yoyo as was assumed by everyone) was slaughtered by Triad minions against whom her father had testified.

Jet has only met Yoyo once, five earlier when he was a kid trying to impress girls with his basketball prowess. She didn’t show up for their date and was too busy to call, having witnessed the slaughter of her family, momentarily escaping from the killers and then being rescued by the angels who left a stack of bodies in their wake. Jet’s feelings are understandable: Tin Sum is just about perfect at Yoyo. She is a staggeringly beautiful actress with a face that the camera loves and has talent to burn. Yoyo could launch a thousand ships and burn the topless towers of Illium before she put her makeup on in the morning.

Part of the conflict is between Yoyo and Winnie. Winnie’s next target is Bowen, a person who really needs killing and who really needs to be killed by Winnie. There is an incredibly brutal flashback that shows Bowen kicking the prostrate and pleading Winnie until she miscarries in a pool of blood. It was his child she was carrying.. Winnie has a real Old Testament view of revenge—or would if there was a Christian sensibility. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—and a child for a child. The angels will infiltrate Bowen’s compound, steal his money, take incriminating evidence and then kill him, his wife and his young daughter. Yoyo is sent as a replacement nurse for the child with expected results—she falls in love with her cute young charge.

The action plays out as one would expect with a lot flamboyant killing using dagger, garrote, razor blade, poison, spear and bare hands. While the angels have been trained with firearms—in one sequence Winnie throws several decks of cards in the air and tells them to shoot only the aces, which they do—all the gunplay is left to the police. Few survive but those who do are on their way to living happily ever after in a Hong Kong where, among other things, the Alfred Hitchcock classic “Notorious” is always playing in the same cinema.

There is quite a bit of extreme brutality including sexual violence and child murder and the plot is much too thin for so much blood and guts but director Steve Cheng moves quickly from splatter scenes to domestic tranquility and blooming young love. He doesn’t make the mistake of lingering over the gore splattered corpses.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: j.crawford
Date: 05/11/2008
Summary: great fun

The American television mega-hit series Charlie's Angels had a huge impact on the Hong Kong movie business. There have been about 20 films made based on the basic premise of that show. One angel or as many as 7 angels; deadly, silver, killing, raging, martial, and fallen angels have graced the big screen. Now we have Lethal Angels from excellent director Steve Cheng Wai-Man working from a screenplay by someone named Wai Lam who, I would bet you HK$1.00, is Wong Jing writing under a pseudonym. This film is kissing cousins to the Naked Killer/Raped by An Angel films; the scenario features some of the most prurient material to slide by the censors in quite some time, as well as some of the most implausible events you might imagine, and all of it is great fun.

Jordan Chan and Andy On play a couple of undercover cops with various issues. While on a surveillance assignment in a nightclub, their target is assassinated by a trio of, you guessed it, lethal "angels". Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi who is always easy to watch is one of a band of "troubled" young women who have had various unfortunate events happen to them and/or their families. They are rescued and trained in the deadly arts by scrappy Li Fei, a Wong Jing regular who always manages an interesting performance, playing a woman scorned, hell-bent on revenge.

[En français] La télévision américaine méga-hit série Charlie's Angels ont un impact énorme sur le film de Hong Kong d'affaires. Il a été d'environ 20 films réalisés basé sur le principe de base de ce spectacle. Un ange ou jusqu'à 7 anges; mortelle, l'argent, le meurtre, qui fait rage, martiaux, et anges déchus ont honoré le grand écran. Maintenant, nous avons Lethal Angels d'un excellent réalisateur Steve Cheng Wai-Man de travail à partir d'un scénario par quelqu'un nommé Lam Wai qui, je parie que vous HK $ 1,00, Wong Jing est écrit sous un pseudonyme. Ce film est le baiser de cousins Naked Killer / Raped by an Angel de films, le scénario quelques-unes des caractéristiques les plus matière à prurient glisser par la censure dans un certain temps, ainsi que quelques-uns des plus plausibles les événements que vous pouvez l'imaginer, et tous de celui-ci est très amusant.

Jordan Chan et Andy sur le jeu un couple de flics d'infiltration de sujets divers. Alors que sur une mission de surveillance dans une boîte de nuit, leur objectif est assassiné par un trio de, vous l'aurez deviné, létale "anges". Cherrie Ying Choi Yi-qui est toujours facile de montre est un d'une bande de "difficulté" de jeunes femmes qui ont eu divers événements malheureux se produisent à eux et / ou de leurs familles. Ils sont sauvés et formés dans les arts mortelles par scrappy Li Fei, un Wong Jing ordinaire qui gère toujours un rendement intéressant, jouant une femme bafouée, l'enfer-courbé sur la vengeance.

Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: mrblue
Date: 07/15/2007

Well, I guess it's time for this month's mandatory Wong Jing review. This time out, we have Lethal Angels, where Wong (via director Steve Cheng and screenwriter Angie Lam-Lam) revisits the bread-and-butter of his output: the "sexy chicks killing lots of people" flick (aka "girls with guns").

To call Lethal Angels derivative of Wong's past work is an obvious understatement. But, just in case you don't note this movie's lineage, the alternate title of Naked Avengers should clue you in to exactly what this movie's about.

Lethal Angels starts out cracking enough, with a heavy dose of sex and violence, until settling down into the movie's slim plot about a hired killer (Cherrie Ying) who has a crisis of conscience when she is targeted to kill an entire family, including a little girl.

The T&A and claret is handled well, fully garnering this movie's Category III rating. Lethal Angels has an almost gleeful use of the naughty bits. Obviously, Wong Jing knows his audience, and realizes that they're not looking for anything other than cheap thrills.

However, the exposition scenes are so leaden that they almost totally de-rail the proceedings. Most of the blame can be fully laid at the feet on Andy On, who is continuing to coast by on his good looks. His attempts (as a cop who falls for Cherrie ala Simon Yam's character in Naked Killer) at creating real emotion aren't even laughable -- they're just annoying.

At least Jordan Chan saves the movie somewhat. He seems to realize the inherent chessiness of a film like this, and so he goes over the top with his performance as Andy's grizzled and horny partner. He's obviously having a lot of fun (albeit in a total "beer money" role) and that feeling transfers on to the viewer.

At the end of the day, I think you know what to expect from Lethal Angels, and it delivers for the most part. Honestly, you're either a fan of movies like this, or you're not. Lethal Angels does most everything solidly, but it's not going to sway anyone to be an admirer of Wong Jing's oeuvre if they aren't already one.

It's a shame that this, like a lot of Wong Jing's recent output, doesn't have the balls-to-the-wall blitzkrieg style of his best exploitation work. But if you're getting tired of the over-glossed family-friendly PG-13 style Hong Kong film-makers seem to go for nowadays and are looking for an action film that doesn't pull any punches, Lethal Angels is a nice trip down memory lane.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewer Score: 7