Operation Pink Squad
Director: Jeff Lau Chun-wai
Year: 1988
Rating: 7.0
This somewhat
muddled film is all over the map, but somehow it still manages to be quite
charming and has a few scenes that are quite dramatic and others that are
hilarious. It has four policewomen, Sandra Ng, Suki Kwan, Elsie Chan (Shy
Grass) and Anne Bridgewater (Plastic Flower - of Full Contact fame), who
are part of a Monitoring Division. Monitoring cops. We first meet them when
they pretend to be hostess girls in a nightclub to get the goods on a corrupt
policeman (Lam Chung) who has just been trying to shake down some triads
for bigger cash donations. Instead they send a hitman to kill him – Jeff
Falcon – and he and Bridgewater have a solid fight. But pressure is applied
to break up the division and they are assigned to a police precinct for duty.
The head of the precinct (Wu Fung) doesn’t want any women in his station
and so does everything he can to make them look bad. Billy Lau, Rickey Hui,
Charley Cho and Lowell Lo are part of his force. Helen Law Lan shows up late
as a senior police woman.
But through luck more than anything, the
women keep coming up roses. In a drug bust in which hundreds of shots are
fired, Ann goes up against Yuen Cheung-yan in a short fight. Finally, Wu
Fung assigns them to keep watch on a blind man (Tan Lap-man) who is suspected
of having stolen some diamonds. Sandra Ng falls madly in love with him. In
one very funny scene the women are trying to watch him, but his blinds are
down. So Ng sneaks into his apartment to raise the blinds – and through a
series of mishaps is trapped under a table with only her head sticking out.
The suspect oblivious to her presence is playing music and unintentionally
pushing some very sharp objects towards the end of the table. Watching Ng
react to this is a classic and finally as they topple over she manages to
catch them with her mouth!
The first hour of this film is played almost
entirely for laughs – with a few nifty action bits thrown in – primarily
through the courtesy of Bridgewater. Then in the last thirty minutes the
film gets quite dramatic and engrossing. Sandra Ng is a marvel in this film
as she switches from comedy to drama – playing both wonderfully. Ng was usually
in films for comedy relief in this period and it wasn't until years later
that her dramatic skills were utilized. A very enjoyable film as long as
you can mix the silly with the dramatic. This was only Suki Kwan’s second
film and her abundant figure is already a focus of attention – sort of a
mini-Amy Yip. It is directed by Jeff Lau early on in his career - after two
Haunted Cop Shop films and Carry On Hotel. Classics like Saviour of the Soul,
The Eagle Shooting Heroes and the Chinese Odyssey films were a few years
away but some of his looney comedy is present here as well as his ability
to mix genres like a house salad. These hybrid Girls with Guns film were
pretty popular at the time - a third comedy, a third action and a third sex
appeal.
