I was rooting around the Internet the other day and I came across this TV series from 2002 titled Flatlands. It only lasted for one season but I began watching it because Dennis Hopper, Michael Wong and Francoise Yip are in the cast. Francoise Yip! Holy shit. Yippie-Yi-Yay. I always wondered what happened to Francoise. For a brief few years she went from Canada to Hong Kong where she became a sex symbol in films. No nudity mind you - just a lot of steamy scenes and pouty lips. Her Chinese-French looks were sultry and sweet and from 1995 to 1997 she made a handful of movies and then vanished. A couple of them were high profile such as Rumble in the Bronx and Black Mask. And a few of them were fairly trashy.


Every now and then Hong Kong picks out a beauty from Canada to import and see how they do – Christy Chung and Theresa Lee come to mind. Well, as it turns out Francoise has been very busy appearing in films and TV on our side of the ocean since she left Hong Kong but I had never bumped into her before. She is actually the top credit in Flatlands – a very confusing TV show in which she uses all the wire work and kung-fu she learned in Hong Kong! So I looked through my films and realized I had this one with her in it that I had never seen. Better late than never may not apply in this case. But I always liked Francoise.



Infatuation would definitely fall into the trashy bucket. Low-grade trashy. A Hong Kong version of Fatal Attraction in which our sweet Francoise (or Maggie in the film) goes full bore nuts. Totally over the top like she had an Oscar in mind. You could if you were mean-spirited say the acting was not great (this was only her second film with no training) but you would have to admit that she gives it everything she has and goes through every emotion known to mankind. Seductive, creepy, romantic, weepy, scared, in despair and as psychotic as an egg being boiled. And sexy. All in the span of a few minutes. A photo of her in a swimming pool in a wet white dress and her hair slicked back like a mercenary coming in for the kill seemed to be prominently displayed in all the HK video stores at the time. Of course, she is not coming in for a literal kill – not yet – but to devour a man. Sexually. All she needed was a knife between her teeth.


She becomes secretary to Ken (Wong Chung-kwan) – nice guy who never sees what is coming for him. His marriage is going through a rocky spell and so when he goes out with Maggie for a drink, she gets him drunk and throws him in the pool and soon follows. For the record she would not have to get me drunk. They frolic in the pool but as we all know frolicking is the gateway to infidelity! This is a pool of a restaurant by the way. He reconciles with his wife (Money Lo) and that doesn’t play so well. Turns out Maggie has a hobby of having affairs with married men and when they go sour she bites them or jabs their privates with a knife. That is child’s play compared to this time. You know this won’t go well for Ken, his wife and their daughter and it doesn’t. Really really doesn’t. The ending built up to what should have been an only in Hong  Kong moment but they pulled back which is a shame. That would have been insane. And wonderful. Dumb as a pile of rocks but it has its moments. And Francoise.