Inspector Wears Skirts has Sibelle Hu and Cynthia Rothrock as two top cops on the Hong Kong police squad. After an attack on a visiting sheik and his family ends in disgrace for the force when male officers touched the sheik's wife while trying to protect her, Hu is tasked with creating a female commando squad. Between the recruits not taking it seriously, and the guys in the other training groups not taking them seriously, Hu has her hands full, but she's able to whip them into shape, later with the help of Rothrock. They get their chance to prove what they can do when a famous jewel is on display in Hong Kong, and the force has intel that a gang wants to steal it. Will Hu, Rothrock, and their team be up to the task?
This one starts off fantastic, with a great action scene featuring Rothrock and Hu. From there it settles into a kind of Fact of Life or John Hughes movie kind of thing, only with plenty of Hong Kong physical humor, and then finishes off with more high-octane action scenes. At first I was like "what's happening here?" but I started to lean into it and liked the idea of an 80s John Hughes movie featuring action like this. Imagine Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy kicking ass and taking names between scenes of hijinx at the high school or a local hangout. Not only that, but Ringwald and Sheedy doing all their stunts! I don't know that this is the first movie for someone who is new to Rothrock or new to 80s Hong Kong cinema, but I liked the idea of it, and Rothrock and Hu were fantastic in their martial arts scenes.
40 movies for Cynthia Rothrock. The first film of hers we covered was X-treme Fighter aka Sci-Fighter, which was a lackluster effort that also starred Lorenzo Lamas and Don "The Dragon" Wilson. That was back in March of 2008, so almost a year after we'd started the site. I think part of the reason why it took so long to get a film of hers up was classics like China O'Brien were harder to come by. Now we have Hong Kong movies like this available on Tubi, so hopefully this is a sign that more of her stuff will get Blu-ray releases or just become easier to get overall. One thing that makes this movie a good one to post for this honor, is it really showcases her high level of skill and athleticism. She's scaling walls, kicking grenades back at baddies, and dodging axes and swords. She's truly one of the best to ever do it, and it's as evident here as it is in any of her films.
Rothrock was more the co-star, with Sibelle Hu as more of the lead. I knew of her before this one, but I'm not as up on Hong Kong films, so I can't tell what else I've seen her in. The character she plays here, Madam Wu, was spun-off from a role she played in other Hong Kong films with stars like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, and which she played in sequels to this movie. I haven't seen any of those, as I haven't really delved into Hong Kong cinema as much as I should have, I kind of come to it more when stars like Rothrock are in a movie. Again, with the availability of more of these films either on Blu-ray, through streamers like Tubi, or archived by a user on YouTube, there's a lot for me to get into, and some of the ones Hu has done look like good places to start, because she was great here too.
The construct of this film is interesting, because it replaces some of the action with more comedic scenes, so the rhythm of an action scene every 10 minutes or so is thrown off a bit. By the same token, it deals with ideas like chauvinism--from a story standpoint in the police department, but metaphorically in the action movie realm--but unfortunately the message didn't make it across the pond in any substantial way. Rothrock herself never quite had that success she deserved, in part I think because American action filmmakers at the highest levels didn't know what to make of her as an action lead. All they needed to do was watch a film like this and it would've told them what to think. As we got into the 90s, we had one-off films with female action leads, and then we had DTV franchises led by Rothrock, or Andy Sidaris's LETHAL Ladies movies that were led by Dona Speir and then Julie Strain; but it's some time before we start to get Milla Jovovich doing Resident Evil movies in 2002.
And that gets me to this last paragraph of where we put Rothrock all time among action leads. In the DTV world, I only have Dolph and Fred Williamson ahead of her, and I think she and Wilson are tied for third behind those two. I have her third all-time among female action leads as well, behind Pam Grier and Michelle Yeoh, and then I think Zoe Saldana and Milla Jovovich are right behind her. Among all the action leads I don't know, I've never really done that list out, but it's hard for her with no real big screen movies to compete with names like Schwarzenegger and Stallone--yet by the same token, should we hold the fact that she didn't get the opportunities against her? Had she had the opportunity to make her Commando or even Cobra, do we doubt she would've hit it out of the park? Of course she would have. Unfortunately we can only wonder what if, and enjoy the gems like these that we have from her, especially as the more obscure ones become available.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can stream this for free with ads on Tubi here in the States. That version is Chinese with English subtitles, which is fine for me, but some people prefer English dubs. However you watch it, this is worth checking out. And congratulations to Cynthia Rothrock for becoming the third actor and sixth member overall of the DTVC 40 Club! It's well-deserved.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094694
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
No comments:
Post a Comment