Story of the Gun - aka Lethal
Girls 2
Director: Tang Pung-tung
Year: 1992
Rating: 6.0
One mini-rant before
I proceed. Tai Seng released this film as part of their Lethal series under
the title Lethal Girls 2 even though it is commonly known as Story of the
Gun. I would not be too bothered by that except that I had already bought
Story, but had not yet watched it– so I was a bit annoyed to find out I had
two videos of the same film. I expect fly by night video distributors to
release films under different titles, but expect something more from a place
like Tai Seng. Ok, on to the film.
In some ways this is an interesting film –
more for some of the sideline plots than the main one – but it doesn’t have
nearly enough action. It basically covers a HK cop Gordon Liu – in a frightful
toupee – trying to track down some gun smugglers on the Mainland and then
back in HK. The smugglers are Yukari Oshima and Mark Cheng. Liu eventually
gets the assistance of Sophia Crawford – an Interpol agent. Much
of the first hour of the film is much more plot driven than action oriented
as nearly everyone is ready to betray everyone else – from the cops to the
bad guys. And time is made for both Gordon and Yukari to get a little romance
in and a few passionate kisses. I can’t recall too many films where Yukari
gets kissed.
Another interesting thread is the hostile
attitude the film takes to the Mainland. Life is portrayed as very harsh
and Yukari – who is the daughter of a high official – is only involved in
the smuggling so that she can leave China. She gives this impassioned speech
“I had everything in China – except my freedom”. Finally
in the last thirty minutes the action cranks up and some of it is decent,
but not really all that memorable. Two fights between Yukari and Sophia are
ok. Apparently, Sophia badly twisted her ankle and so they shoot her in the
leg so that she can limp through her last scenes.
