The Mini-Skirt Gang
Director: Lui
Kei
Year: 1974
Rating: 4.0/10
When I first started getting into Hong Kong films and the Shaw
Brothers back in the 1990s, this film was often talked about in back street
alleys - sexy, nudity, cheeky - elusive as the Yeti but filled with promise.
There just seemed to be no way to obtain the film other than promising your
first born and the few who had seen it were from a race of Super Men, who
spoke of it like it was a state secret. Even when Celestial bought the rights
to the Shaw Brothers library they never got around to releasing this film
(and many others unfortunately). But it is out there in the gray market and
in pretty good condition - so having given up on Celestial I picked it up
and watched it.
The one fact that all those people who had seen it never got around to mentioning
is that the film is awful! Drivel. Plotless. Pointless. Ok, not entirely
pointless as it does have four lovely ladies in various stages of dress throughout.
That is actually all it has and perhaps once upon a time in the 1970's that
was enough for audiences in Hong Kong. Remember this was pre-cable. In the
1970's part of Shaw's output switched over to very soft core simulated sex/nudity
and there were a few actresses who made a name for themselves performing
in these films. Most of the films are pretty brainless but not all - a few
were period sex romps and a few had gritty plots of vengeance and violence.
But the majority were comedies in name only.
Lui Kei who directs this film was responsible for a whole bunch of them -
Sexy Girls of Denmark, Sexy Playgirls, Sexy Career Girls - and so on. Especially
weird in that in the 1960's he was one of the major male romantic stars of
Cantonese films playing second fiddle to Connie Chan or Josephine Siao on
many an occasion. I guess with the collapse of the Cantonese film industry,
he turned to directing goofy sex films. It would be nice to say that he had
a certain style or brought something unique to them but they are basically
as bad as episodes of Love American Style but with nudity.
This one has two well-known female stars in that small circle of HK exploitation
actresses - the blonde Danish actress Birte Tove who had made a number of
soft core films in Europe - Swedish Fly Girls, Danish Bed and Board
- and who somehow managed to find herself in three Shaw films - The Mini-Skirt
Gang, Sexy Girls of Denmark and the very good and trashy film The Bamboo
House of Dolls. Alongside Birte is Chen Ping who is one of my favorite Shaw
actresses as she managed to go back and forth between straight Shaw films
and these exploitation films. Two of her best exploitation films are The
Kiss of Death and Big Bad Sis in which she is looking for sweet revenge.
There is really nothing to this film - like a leaf blowing by in the wind.
Four young women just want to have fun and money - the money is derived from
pickpocketing men who are easily fooled or distracted by these women. For
nearly the entire film it is a series of various scenarios in which they
pick pockets. I was just in Hong Kong - I must have gotten lucky because
it seems there are pickpockets everywhere and I now recall that when I visited
a temple an announcement was constantly played to beware of pickpockets.
But unfortunately no sexy women tried with me. When they are not stealing,
they are walking around their apartment in their underwear or in one instance
taking a shower together. Lui Kei makes a vague and half hearted attempt
to throw in a few subplots - a gang that kidnaps girls to force them into
prostitution or another girl they bring into the gang getting pregnant -
but that was just to pad the film to 90 minutes - the girls in their underwear
is the raison d'être and for some that may be enough.
