Dreaming the Reality (1991)
Reviewed by: CaptainAmerica on 2002-06-21
Summary: You want a review? You got it!
DREAMING THE REALITY is easily one of the best of the Yukari Oshima/Moon Lee films...unlike NAKED KILLER, which also involves the world of assassins, this film is as straight as a razor blade. The only leavening moments come with the appearance of Sibelle Hu in one of her best performances. This mix of tragedy, humanity and loyalty is an absolute must for any HK movie fan!

This film also gives us one of the best HK villains you love to hate outside of the one and only Anthony Wong from HARD BOILED and THE UNTOLD STORY: Eddy Ko, who is nothing less than a hellspawn as the leader of a triad organization who takes in three children and trains them from their early years to become professional killers. Think an HK mix of David Koresh and Osama bin Laden and you've got Eddy's character: he teaches his young charges to be nothing less than ruthless, and loyalty comes first -- WAY first -- before all other considerations...if he even THINKS you're wavering in your devotion to him, you're dead. It's under this iron-fisted charge that the three kids -- two girls and a boy -- grow up to be the agreeable Yukari and Moon, and the third the silent and sociopathic Scorpion. In a plotline that runs parallel, Sibelle Hu plays a former HK cop living in Thailand with her brother...he's an up-and-coming kickboxer who gets involved with a criminally-connected fight promoter. (I must also join the legion of reviewers who frowned down on the extended kickboxing match footage that takes up WAY too much time...that time could have been spent with Yukari and Moon!) Sibelle's relationship with her brother and her acerbic reactions to life around her help lift this film up from the deadly-serious tone of the rest of the movie.

Both plotlines crash together when a hit assigned to Yukari and Moon goes bad...so bad they get chased by the Thai military! They both escape, taking separate paths, but Moon's character (who grabbed a piece of evidence that can derail Eddy's organization) is injured mid-flight and suffers amnesia. She's taken in by Sibelle and her bro...but it isn't long after that, when Eddy thinks Moon has gone disloyal and wants the evidence that could imprison him, that all hell starts breaking loose.

Both Yukari and Moon are at their best in this film...they aren't just high-style and absolutely deadly, the characters they portray are two of the best they've been given to sink their teeth into. You feel for them, considering they were basically taught from childhood how to be killers(!), and their relationship is virtually sisterly...in fact, that's how they see each other. (Some reviewers have also seen some more provocative subtext in their relationship...I can see what they're talking about, but you can judge for yourself!) This film more than ANGEL or even ANGEL TERMINATORS 2 shows us exactly what they're capable of together, and that alone is grounds for dropping everything and seeing this movie. So what are you waiting for? Go find it if you don't have it...and if you have it, watch it again!