Dead Target
Director: Lee Siu-wa
Year: 1991
Rating: 6.5
If a film full of
rampaging elephants and nude transsexuals don’t do it for you – then what
about a film full of nude elephants and rampaging transsexuals? This low
budget action film hits just the right notes of goofiness and action with
a large element of total weirdness thrown in just for the hell of it. It
all adds up to an enjoyable romp along the lines of Stone Age Warriors, Hero
Dream and the Perils of Pauline.
In this case though it is not Pauline who is constantly in danger of losing
her life, but the very appealing Sharon Kwok, who appeared in a number of
low budget films during the 90’s and has a great inviting smile. She was
married for a time to Chin Sui Ho – and he brings his fine martial arts skills
to this film as well. Oddly enough, two years later he also starred in Hero
Dream which also has loads of transsexuals running about often in a state
of undress. Recently, Chin was in the papers for being caught while surreptitiously
filming underneath women’s dresses in public with a camcorder – but I am
sure appearing in these two slightly perverse films had nothing to do with
his little hobby!
Sharon receives a letter from her grandfather who lives in Thailand asking
her to visit him and to bring along a charm that is the key to recovering
a precious Royal Crown that was buried decades earlier. In fact though, the
grandfather is a captive of an evil Gweilo – who wants to steal the treasure
himself.
On the plane, Sharon first runs into Chin and he continues to show up at
other opportune times throughout the film to beat up some bad guys. As soon
as Sharon lands in Bangkok, she begins a riotous roller coaster ride through
the sex trade in Thailand as she is continually on the run or in the middle
of a fight. While being chased by the Gwielo and his many minions, she wrecks
a Go-Go bar (in which the scantily clad girls help beat up the bad guys),
hides in the middle of a transvestite nightclub show (in which various transsexuals
are shown in various states of development!), ends up being mistaken for
a massage girl and is put in the display window, has to jump into a less
than clean river from a moving train and falls out of a coconut tree. All
along the way, she is getting whacked around – but also giving out some good
whacks as well. Of course, her character is an aerobics instructor and we
know how tough they can be!
But I haven’t even mentioned the elephants yet. Right out of an old Tarzan
movie, she saves a baby elephant from drowning – and then when she is surrounded
by the villains – the baby leads the other elephants back to protect her
by stomping, gouging and using their trunks to de-masculate the bad guys.
None of this will make you a better person – but it has a certain uniqueness
and sense of nuttiness that should appeal on some weird level to nearly everyone!
