Queens High
The film begins with the iconic scene
of Cynthia Khan in her beautiful white flowing wedding gown stained with
blood picking up a machine gun and blasting away. This reminded me of a similar
scene in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun except in that one the woman was in a
school girl uniform and she missed everyone she aimed at. Cynthia does not.
This was just a tease as that scene doesn’t take place until halfway through
the movie but the producers knew a money shot when they saw it. It probably
sold a few tickets. The film actually begins a few days before that with
Cynthia, her fiancé Peter (Cha Chuen-yee) and her brother Simon Yam
welcoming their father (Wang Yong) home from a business trip. A lot of joshing
goes on with Simon teasing his sister and telling Peter that he better marry
her soon. One happy family. Well yes and no. Because this is a triad family.
An honorable one in the world of triads but still criminals. And so you know
they won’t be happy for long.
I get the feeling that the script was written
around the amount of days they had certain actors for. Cynthia they clearly
had for the whole shoot because this is her film – but other actors who are
reasonably well-known don’t last long. Literally. A little spoiler but Kenneth
Tsang shows up at a party being given by the father. He has been in prison
for a crime the father committed and has come by to say hi. Tsang is a big
actor relatively and so you are thinking that either he will join up with
his Boss or go against him and that this will be a big part of the film. About
five minutes later he is murdered by someone else not connected to the family.
Then you think that guy will be the villain of the story – nope – about five
minutes later he is killed. And then comes the wedding. Don’t get attached
to anyone in this film.
It is a standard triad tale of loyalty,
betrayal, greed and violence. Everybody grabbing for a piece of the family
pie and they have a rat on the inside. Eventually, Cynthia has to take over
the family business and the bad guys think – no problem, just a woman. One
that we learned early on was an expert shot, car driver and martial artist.
So they come for her. Big mistake. In the parking garage of course. Don’t
use parking garages is my motto. Too many killings and rapes occur there.
There are two other excellent action set-pieces. Cynthia shows no mercy in
this film. She is Triad. Born and bred. She goes for revenge with a bunch
of her men and a big gun battle follows and then the very fine finale when
she pretty much takes on all the bad guys including the rat. That includes
two Japanese assassins and Billy Chow. Then her men show up and another huge
gun battle breaks out. It must run about fifteen minutes.
This is a pretty solid Girls with Guns film. Many complaints I have seen
feel there are too many long gaps between action scenes – perhaps – but it
is called a plot and this film though treading over familiar ground has a
decent one. Cynthia was on a roll with the In the Line of Duty films, Tiger
Cage II and a few wuxia styled films - Zen of Sword, The 13 Cold-Blooded
Eagles and Deadend of Besiegers. And in between those is the wonderful It's
Now or Never which takes place in the 1960s and Cynthia is a Teddy Girl.
I wish I could get a hold of it again.
My Rating: 6.5
