Five Pretty Young Ladies
 
 
       
Director: Shut Dik
Year: 1975
Rating: 6.0

Dubbed

Aka - Bruce, Kung Fu Girls

This Taiwanese film is rather kookie fun. It is sort of a contemporary light Kung Fu Romance or maybe call it Kung Fu Cute in which the five girls go swimming, to a disco, camping, dress up, celebrate a birthday and go to a park to frolic. Three songs are played over the film. In between these activities and songs they beat up on a lot of men.  This would have fit in nicely in the femme fatale spy type films of the Shaw Brothers during the 1960s if only they had a budget ten times what they have, bigger sets, a sleek look and Lily Ho. But they do their best. The villain's lair which were always the highlight of those Shaw films is a home. Just a regular home. No trap doors in the floor, no poison booby traps or sliding hidden doors. Just a home.



But there is an invisible man, the main villain is a sexy female and the five pretty girls are often in black boots, tight black shorts and black jackets. That is definitely a plus because they are in fact pretty. Three of the five are fairly unknown and didn't appear in a lot of films but the other two are very well-known - Polly Shang-kuan and Elsa Yang. I expect most people who are interested in kung-fu films are familiar with Pretty Pretty Polly (Kinks reference) but perhaps not so much with Elsa. This was her debut film and she and the non-Polly girls are clumped together but she was to go on to a lengthy career, primarily in Taiwan and showed up in a bunch of what have become cult films – Thrilling Bloody Sword, Pink Force Commando, Golden Queen’s Commando, The Challenge of the Lady Ninja and A Life of Ninja. 



They are just regular girls who own a gym, hang out together and know some kung-fu. One day they are all swimming in a pool when a man runs through chased by a gang of hooligans. Polly will have none of that and along with the other four send them into the pool. The man  (Huang Cheng) being chased tells them they are after a formula he has invented and says goodbye. The girls swoon a bit – clearly there is a man shortage. The gang leader is pissed – “you let women beat you”. Boss they were good. Let’s test them, leading to another brawl in the disco and then later they show up when they are camping. By now you might think they got the hint that these woman kick ass – especially theirs’s.



Meanwhile, an invisible man is breaking into homes and stores stealing money. No one in the film ever looks particularly surprised that there is a frigging invisible man. Their police Uncle (Lui Ming) asks them to help because . . well they know kung-fu. They lay a trap for him when a moon rock goes on exhibition. The Big Boss behind the gang is none other than the lovely Betty Pei-ti of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan fame. It is really cheap looking because it is – but has a fair amount of women beating the crap out of the gang. The choreography is average – by Huang Kuo-chu (Scorching Sun, General Stone) and I get the feeling that Polly and perhaps Elsa are the only ones with real martial arts skills. Polly does most of the fighting and looks great in her black shorts. There just isn’t any one person on the villain side though who is worthy of fighting her.