Magnificent Warriors (Taiwan Version) VCD

Once inside the mountain kingdom she makes for the capital city, a crazy quilt of one and two story mud huts that are perfect for bouncing overly committed Japanese soldiers off of, and she hooks up with Yee. "I'm here to mash your male chauvinism," she tells him in that icy, commanding tone she's mastered. Richard Ng "swindles, and robs, and creeps" his way into the plot as a self-serving conman, and the ever-irritating Lowell Lo plays the natives' spiritual leader, Youda (Yogurt + Yoda = Youda?). Before the movie's over, Michelle's mashed their male chauvinism as well.

Lo's Buddhist vows are taken to the whiniest extremes, abstinence becoming a knee-quaking fear of women, non-violence becoming a form of spinelessness, and he's facing a moral dilemma as he coerces his people to go along with whatever the occupying Japanese army wants, including using them as quality control testers for the nerve gas they're manufacturing.

Everyone wears khaki in this ode to Raiders of the Lost Ark military chic. Director David Chung is an accomplished cinematographer (Dangerous Encounter - First Kind, Painted Faces) and he brings his eye to the panoramic vistas with Michelle Yeoh framed in the foreground beating down Japanese ninjas with a hunk o'rope. Three stunt coordinators were brought in for the final action-packed half-hour as the capital city comes under siege and Youda, a man of supposedly spiritual leanings, grabs a water-cooled .50 caliber machine gun to mow down the Japanese invaders. All bow down to the needs of the filmic narrative.

by Grady Hendrix