The Wild Ones
Tough teenage girls gone bad is occasionally a
subject that HK films delves into – Sexy and Dangerous, Now or Never, Girls
Gang – and this one are a few. This 1989 film has Loletta Lee, Fenny Yuen,
Irene Wan and Chan Ka-ling as four troubled teenaged girls looking for
fun in all the wrong places. Don’t let the title mislead you though, the
Wild Bunch these girls are not and it becomes clear fairly early that behind
those snarls is a kitty cat waiting to come out. The film makes a stab
at being socially relevant, but that is really neither here nor there –
the main pleasure of this film comes from watching Loletta and Fennie play
tough behind chewing gum and cigarettes. When the foulest insult is Fennie
telling someone “Go eat banannas!” you know these girls won't be robbing
banks any time soon!
Olivia Cheng is a counselor in Canada where one
day the cops tell her to go back to HK where she can do some good and oddly
enough she does – leaving behind her hunky boyfriend Simon Yam to deal
with those Canadian winters
In HK she gets a job as a guidance counselor in
a Girls Home where underage girls get sent for committing minor criminal
acts. Loletta is here for smashing her wealthy father’s girlfriend’s face
through a car window, Fennie for pimping her best friend – Chan Ka-ling
– and Irene Wan for not being able to pay for a meal. Just girls having
a little fun.
The film follows that basic To Sir with Love premise
as Olivia tries to break through the tough façade to the real girl
underneath. Part of that is investigating the girl’s lives and families
to see what the underlying cause is for their behavior. During her investigations,
she realizes that one of the girls is her half sister – now what are the
chances of that. None of this is very original.
What’s kind of fun again is just the girls. There
are plenty of fights among them – Loletta and Fenny take some pretty good
whacks at one another and eventually a couple of the girls get in trouble
with a triad gang – but thankfully it turns out that Olivia is also a kung-fu
expert! Always a plus on the resume. She breaks into a brothel and takes
on the triad gang - now thats a girl's counselor for you.
Not a riveting film by any means – but if any
of these actresses are favorites of yours it is an easy way to pass 90
minutes.
My rating for this film: 6.0
