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Since its heyday in the early to mid nineties there have been a lot less out and out 'Girls with Guns' films being produced by the HK movie industry. However many films still feature gun toting gals even if they aren't the main characters. One of the best of these is 'The Blood Rules', a violent crime thriller. Jean (Shooky Kwan) is a prominent member of a ruthless robbery gang who make a living out of robbing Triad gangs.
When one of their gang is tortured into revealing their latest plans the Triads are not too pleased and soon Jean and Co. are being pursued by both the Triads and the police who are investigating the spate of robberies. Unfortunately Jean doesn't survive much longer than half the film but makes a very impressive armed robber until her heroic demise. This film stars an actor called Lam Suet (!!!) which can't be a bad thing.
Another fairly recent example of the role of the bad girl in HK cinema is 'Purple Storm'. This is a high octane action movie for which HK has become renown. The lead character, Todd (Daniel Wu) suffers amnesia following a terrorist attack and boy does he have amnesia. He seems to have forgotten that he is actually a member of a terrorist group and that he has a wife Guan Gi (Josie Ho) who is also a more than an eager member in the organisation. In addition his father Soong, who is chief baddie, is anxious to recover his son and star operative but once this has been achieved the allegiances of Todd become confused.
The master plan of the group is a chemical attack on Chiang Mai. The group need an aircraft and the climactic scenes happen when the HK Police discover the plan and try to stop them. The full ruthlessness of Guan Gi becomes apparent at this point though her actions throughout the film are not mild either.
The next film is a big disappointment. 'Legend of Wind' features three good looking HK actresses (the most well known being Lily Chung) but could have been so much better. The three girls have to learn to shoot guns after being recruited to take revenge against a crime baron. The premise sounds promising but the film degenerates into a sleazy mess with the girls taking a back role throughout all the significant action scenes. In many ways this film personifies why HK films have gone off the boil with the director unsure if he is making a CatIII film, a girls with guns film or an out and out action film and ending up with a mish mash of all three pleasing nobody.
There are dozens of films which I'd like to mention but space has once again run out. However because HK film is such a rich vein for Girls and Guns films expect more articles in the forthcoming editions
