Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (23 page)

Finally, Brigitte found her happy cinematic ending by way of Wong Kar-wai
, who featured her in his famous art films
Chungking Express
(1994) and
Ashes of Time
(1994). Then Lin gracefully retired from acting. Even in the worst of her one hundred and six films, she was never less than a class act.

Meanwhile, the boys’ club that was the 1980s kung fu film industry rolled on. That is, until the pendulum swung again, and mogul/producer Dickson Poon
got a really bad idea: Why not launch his fledgling D&B production company with a film about two butt-kicking beauties? Why not, indeed. The resulting film,
Yes Madam
(1985, but made years earlier) — named for what police subordinates say when replying to a superior female officer — was deemed unreleasable when director Corey Yuen Kwai
finished it … possibly out of standard operating sexism.

Kwai (aka Ying Gang-ming), another Peking Opera
school “Little Fortune,” was already well-established as an actor, stuntman, and choreographer. But his directing career had just begun, having helmed the surprise hit
Ninja
in the Dragon
’s Den
(one of the first non-Liu Chia-liang
films to show Japanese — in this case Hiroyuki Sanada
— in a positive light) in 1982. Having lost face by his new film being shelved, off he went to direct, action direct, and write Jean-Claude Van Damme
’s breakthrough film
No Retreat No Surrender
(1985).

But producer Dickson was attracted to one of the starring actresses of
Yes Madam
, and decided to give her another chance. He showcased her in a new Japanese/Hong Kong co-production called
Royal Warriors
(1986), directed by noted cinematographer David Chung
. This action-packed, over-emotional tale of a female Hong Kong cop and a male Japanese detective running afoul of a killer’s brother after spectacularly foiling a jet hijacking, caught the public’s fancy. But the audience, like Dickson, was especially impressed by the lead actress. She was as beautiful as she was charming and capable, and they wanted to know more about the budding superstar that Poon had dubbed Michelle Khan.

Michelle was born to a lawyer’s family in Ipoh, Malaysia, on August 6, 1962 with the name Yeoh Choo-kheng. Growing up in a tropical, tin-mining, town, young Michelle represented Malaysia in national swimming, diving, and squash competitions. But her real passion was dance (her mom went on record, saying that her daughter started to dance before she could even walk). She eventually attended the London Royal Academy of Dance, but her dreams of ballet stardom were cut short by a rotated disk in her spine.

When Michelle returned to Malaysia in 1983, she discovered that her mother had entered her into a national beauty contest, and she was crowned Miss Malaysia at the age of twenty-one. Taking advantage of the travel that came with the contest, she met Dickson Poon
, who was looking for someone to do a TV commercial with Jackie Chan
. Michelle wound up doing two charming spots with both Chan and Chow Yun-fat
. The public reaction was so positive that the producer quickly offered her a film contract. But that, with
Yes Madam
, seemed over before it began.

But
Royal Warriors
did what she, Rothrock, Corey Yuen, and sanity could not — its success freed
Yes Madam
from the vaults and into theaters, where, of course, it became a huge hit. Looking at it now, it’s hard to figure out what anyone could consider unreleasable about it (outside of standard operating sexism). The tale of a female Hong Kong cop and a female Interpol agent running afoul of three petty thieves (played by comic actor John Shum
, stuntman/choreographer Mang Hoi
, and director Tsui Hark
) while trying to bring down a crime lord had snap, crackle and pop to spare. It also had a future action star to whom ignorance was bliss.

“In the beginning, I substituted my lack of experience with guts and bravado,” Michelle told me. On the first day of filming the climatic fight in the villain’s
palatial home, Michelle was supposed to do what the action choreographer referred to as an “easy” stunt … which, unbeknownst to Michelle, had already sent one stuntman to the hospital. All she had to do was sit on a balcony railing, fall back, curl the back of her knees on the railing, swing head-first through a pane of glass beneath the railing, grab the legs of two villains, and then pull them back the other way so they could crash to the ground below.

“What did I know?” Michelle remembered. “I had dancing training. I just got up there and did it.” And, by so doing, won the admiration of the entire crew. But she wasn’t alone in this admiration society.

“I think the crew was impressed,” blonde American martial artist Cynthia Rothrock
told me, “because here I was, a little foreign woman who they thought would be afraid to get hurt. But I did everything they asked” — including such terrific stunts as doing a split on the wall while fighting off thugs with a bamboo pole. It was all in a day’s work for the real-life martial artist, who was the number-one female kung fu stylist in the world two years running.

Corey Yuen put the two through their paces, making the kung fu movie fan yearn for a director’s cut that would include a no-holds-barred battle at a temple and the scene in which the two fight off the ferocious Dick Tei Wei
— both of which were left on the cutting room floor. But what remains is the seminal Hong Kong woman-warrior epic.

While Michelle went on to
Royal Warriors
,
Rothrock moved on to an even more impressive follow-up.
Righting Wrongs
(aka
Above the Law
,
1986, not to be confused with Steven Seagal
’s 1988 film of the same name)
is also considered one of Yuen Baio
’s best movies — an insane melange of
Death Wish
(1974) and
The Untouchables
(1987), produced by Baio and directed by Corey Yuen Kwai
. Baio plays a law student whose professor is gunned down in front of him. After annihilating his prof’s killers in a sizzling car chase and fight scene, Baio decides to go outside the law for justice. Rothrock plays the well-meaning Interpol agent who tries to stop him, not realizing how deep police corruption goes.

Briskly brutal, with some amazing moments of kung fu black comedy (as when Cynthia and Yuen do an acrobatic martial arts dance all over a seated murder victim),
Righting Wrongs
is not a happy movie, but it is consistently exciting with some great kung fu (choreographed by the star, the director, Sammo Hung
, Mang Hoi
, and even Hsu Hsia
). Not only does Rothrock fight Baio, but also fellow Caucasian Karen Sheperd
, who played a martial arts hit woman who murdered a teenage witness to the villain’s homicidal politics. In the original version, everybody dies, but when that reality hurt the box office in certain countries, new scenes were shot that allowed either Yuen and Cynthia, or both, to live. There are literally four versions of
Righting Wrongs
floating around: one in which they both live, one in which they both die, and two in which only one lives.

Meanwhile, Michelle “Khan” was balancing her film work with a budding romance with the powerful Dickson. She completed a nominal follow-up to
Royal Warriors
called
Magnificent Warriors
(1988), but it did not premiere until two years afterward. Although entertaining in its own right, it had nothing to do with its predecessor. Taking place during World War
II, Michelle makes like a vengeful cross between Bruce Lee
and Indiana Jones to save a small town from Japanese invaders. Marred by a tone that fluctuated between honest emotion, insane action, and inopportune slapstick comedy,
Magnificent Warriors
didn’t slow Khan down, but marriage, by dint of Chinese tradition, did.

Once she became Mrs. Dickson Poon
, her movie career was all but over. Cynthia Rothrock
, however, carried on. The only thing that slowed her down, ironically enough, was the color of her skin, not to mention hair. Just as American filmmakers had been slow to accept Asian action stars, Hong Kong looked upon the blonde, round-eyed Rothrock with skepticism, curiosity, and, in some rare cases, downright hostility. It wasn’t that the film industry was racist (oh, no!) but the audience … would the
audience
accept her?! Of course they would, but the game played out in its usual pattern. There was hemming and hawing about what kind of role they could give her. Hong Kong was not exactly a melting pot, and a blonde white woman stood out like a marshmallow in butterscotch pudding.

Sammo Hung
, who had given Michelle her first, non-fighting, role in his weak comedy
Owl vs. Dumbo
(1984) eliminated the problem by making Cynthia just one in a mob of interracial robbers for
Millionaire’s Express
. But Sammo’s no fool: she got extra attention, because, first, she was the only white woman villain, and second, she was the one who fought director and co-star Sammo. While Yuen Baio
fought Dick Tei Wei
and Japanese action actress Yukari Oshima
beat off a gang of co-stars, Rothrock faced off against Hung in a memorable, nicely structured one-on-one in a hotel lobby. She gives him far worse than she gets until Sammo is forced to take her seriously. He does his patented Bruce Lee
impersonation to get in the proper mood, and then makes her spine sorry it was ever thrown onto the marble floor.

Although the film did poorly at the box office, both Rothrock and Oshima were the talk of the industry. Sammo’s friends, Jackie Chan
and Frankie Chan
(no relation), took advantage of their skills. Although Jackie’s
Armour of God
injury prevented an on-screen face-to-face with Cynthia, he tried to make it up to her by having her cast in
The Inspector Wears Skirts
(aka
Top Squad,
1988), a slapstick comedy he produced, inspired by the American
Police Academy
movies. As successful as that was (sprouting a fistful of increasingly inferior sequels sans Cynthia), it was Yukari who was one step away from attaining Angela Mao
status when Frankie cast her as his co-star in his clever
Outlaw Brothers
(1987).

Frankie played one of two sibling, high-end, car thieves who accidentally steals a female drug lord’s latest shipment. Statuesque Michiko Nishiwaki
is the villain, while Yukari is the cop assigned to bring down both the thieves and druggies. Frankie, a Southern Shaolin Long Fist fan, cleverly plays out their romantic comedy in both banter and fight scenes (choreographed by Fung Hak-on
and Yuen Shun-yi
). This is clearly Frankie’s best film, and apex of his directing career, which began promisingly, but faltered shortly after this. Don’t feel sorry for him, though — he was the second unit director for
Operation Condor
, still reigns as one of Hong Kong’s most prominent and sought-after soundtrack composers, and, twenty-three years later, was chosen by producer Jackie Chan
to direct
Lady Warriors of the Yang Family
(2011).

Still, this movie is enough. It has several excellent kung fu sequences, culminating in a warehouse battle royal filled with snakes, chickens, cigarettes, rice, and gweilo bad guys who wield blade-encrusted fans and ringed swords as well as guns. It would have made a great series except for the sour fadeout, where Oshima reveals that she was playing Frankie for a sucker all along (the film ends on a freeze-frame of a handcuffed Frankie kicking her across the screen). Instead, Oshima guided her unlikely career through a fairly unique set of roadblocks. First, she was a woman in chauvinist Asia. Second, she was Japanese in Nippon-hating Hong Kong. Third, she shifted her skills between Japan
, Taiwan, and the Philippines, as well as Hong Kong.

Following
Outlaw Brothers
, she made a memorable appearance in the Chinese live action adaptation of the hyper-violent
Story of Ricky
(aka
Ricky O
, 1991), based on a ridiculously graphic Japanese manga (comic book). But the rest of her career, numbering more than fifty movies, was in cheap exploitation films (save for a glorified cameo at the beginning of
Project S
, the sequel to
Supercop
). But for woman wushu warrior fans, these B movies were catnip. In 1992 alone she made fourteen, including
Kickboxer
’s Tears
,
Fatal Chase
, and
Beauty Investigator
(many released in America by Tai Seng
). She was also a mainstay in the
Angel
series — a bunch of flicks made by a variety of companies based on the
Charlie’s Angels
TV show (1976-1981). It all began with
Angel
(aka
Iron Angels
) in 1986, which launched the “Girls with Guns” subgenre, and wound its way for years, giving new life to the career of one of the industry’s best-liked ingénues.