Madame City Hunter
Director: Johnnie Kong Yeuk-Sing
Year: 1993
Rating: 7.0
Madame City Hunter
has been released by Tai Seng in a dubbed version under the title “Lady
Hunter”. It is a fairly decent little action/comedy with Cynthia Khan as
the main focal point. Cynthia has some able support though from Anthony Wong,
Kara Hui Ying-Hung and Sheila Chan.
It gets off to a quick start as the cops surround
a group of bad guys in a house. The cops can’t do much against the heavily
armed group until Cynthia shows up on the scene. The captain turns to Cynthia
and says “its up to you now”. Gee, thanks. No problem for Cynthia of course
as she jumps onto the roof, slides through a window and takes out all the
bad guys by herself. Just a typical work day for Cynthia.
Five minutes later (in film time), she is
taking on some other bad sorts and in the action kills one of the members
of the Five Fingers group. They come after her for revenge and are able
to frame her for a murder. Her superintendent (Tommy Wong) is worried about
her being killed and so hires a detective, Anthony Wong, to protect her.
Wong plays his role (with the name Charlie Chan) in total goofball style.
This was still fairly early in his career – though done in the same year
as Hard Boiled – and he had not quite acquired his reputation as one of HK’s
premier actors. He has some action scenes in the film – one a classic fight
against a transvestite in which he uses her brass falsies as nunchakas!
Another plot line has Cynthia’s father (Woo
Fung) engaged to the wondrous Kara. Cynthia is a bit concerned as she learns
that Kara’s last two husbands died mysteriously leaving her loads of money.
Is her father next up for the Black Widow? Kara has two good action scenes,
but she almost steals the film with a sexy and humorous outing. In one sequence,
she does a strip tease, washes a car and dresses as a maid. This is Auntie?
It’s hard to believe she has been doing films since the late seventies.
This is not a bad outing – not a classic by any means – but some good action
(as one might expect by a film produced by Yuen Wo-Ping) along with some light
so-so comedy thrown in. At times it gets a bit talkie, but a young Anthony
Wong and a sexy Kara make it worth a view. Wong's assistant is the wacky
Shiela Chan.
