YES, MADAM! [1985]

Yes Madam (1985)
Directed by: Corey Yuen
Written by: Barry Wong
Starring: Cynthia Rothrock, John Sham, Mang Hoi, Michelle Yeoh

AKA HUANG JIA SHI JIE, POLICE ASSASSINS, POLICE ASSASSINS 2, IN THE LINE OF DUTY

HONG KONG

AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY: NOW, from EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT

RUNNING TIME: 93 min / 87 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

Inspector Ng manages to stop the theft of an armoured car by a group of bank robbers. Elsewhere in Hong Kong, two petty crooks, Asprin and Strepsil, rob undercover cop Richard Norden after he’s been murdered, inadvertently coming into possession of microfilm which contains details of a group of criminals, most notably businessman Mr. Tin. Even though they then pass it on to their forger friend Panadol, all three become targeted. There’s the vicious Mr. Tin and and his men, but there’s also the police. The killed man was Ng’s boyfriend, and, because Norden worked for Scotland Yard, Carrie Moss is brought over to assist her, though the two police ladies don’t get on that well due to their different approaches to the job….

You may well have already seen Yes, Madam! at some point and not known about it. It was released in most Asian territories as Yes, Madam, and was soon followed up by Royal Warriors, which also starred Michelle Yeoh but not Cynthia Rothrock. Royal Warriors was originally re-titled Police Assassins on video in the UK,. with Yes, Madam subsequently packaged as a sequel, therefore becoming Police Assassins 2. In many other countries, Yes, Madam and Royal Warriors were called In The Line of Duty and In The Line Of Duty 2. The success of those led to the production of In The Line of Duty 3 aka Huang jia shi jie zhi 3: Ci xiong da dao and In The Line Of Duty 4 aka Wong ga si je 4: Jik gik jing yan, which starred Yang Li-Tsing, credited as ‘Cynthia Khan’ to link her to Rothrock and Yeoh who was originally billed with the surname Khan. When Yes, Madam made it to UK DVD, it was released as Police Assassins, then In the Line of Duty 4 was released as In The Line of Duty! It’s odd that this is the case with such an important film in Hong Kong cinema. There had of course been female action leads before, but it was this movie which began the “Femme Fatale” or “Battling Babes” cycle which was very popular for some time, even continuing when Category 3 [more sex and violence] films suddenly became a thing. It pairs two of the icons of the subgenre and Boy do they deliver, though, perhaps because of uncertainty as to whether audiences would take to not just one but two tough female leads, it spends a bit more time with actors John Sham and Mang Hoi, plus no less than iconic director Tsui Hark who shows himself to be quite adept at performing silly. Consequently there are long gaps in the action and a lot of time spent on humour which doesn’t always travel well. Nonetheless, having not seen it in ages, I was surprised by how much I was invested in the three crook characters.

While working a martial arts demonstration team, the magazine ‘Inside Kung Fu’ contacted Cynthia Rothrock’s team stating that D & B Films was looking for a new male lead for a film. The team also had a few women and decided to bring them along, leading to Rothrock being cast on the spot and the character changed from male to female. As for Michelle Yeoh, this was also her first starring role though she’d played small roles in Sammo Hung’s films Owl vs. Dumbo and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. Not a trained martial artist, she worked out in a gym for eight hours a day in training for her part. During the filming of a final fight scene, Dick Wei kicked Rothrock so hard in the side of the head that she began bleeding from her ear. At the hospital, a torn inner ear was diagnosed but Rothrock immediately returned to filming. However, a stand-in for Wei was brought in to film the shot of Rothrock butterfly kicking him, presumably because Wei was anticipating payback from her. Now, this film once contained one of the holy grails in Hong Kong movies, with Yeoh and Rothrock battling some bad guys in a Macau temple with weapons, which inspired publicity stills and even a video cover. However, it was deemed out of place, which I can understand, though it’s still a huge same that it seems lost for good. Though a box office success, it was given nine minutes of cuts to have less of an emphasis on comedy, beginning with the removal of Ng’s first scene with a flasher, and continuing with an argument involving Asprin, Strepsil and Panadol. Hung’s, David Chiang’s and Richard Ng’s cameos as old men in a hospital went, as did part of Wu Ma’s cameo as a cop who loves issuing parking tickets, Strepsil doing a little bit of comedic fighting and some talk between the combatants in the climax. Most bizarrely, a totally unrelated action scene from Where’s Officer Tuba was put in at the start of the film. I wonder why this was done?

I’d never actually seen the Theatrical Cut before so was surprised to not see that random bit of police business and have in its place Ng being stalked and approached in a bookshop by a flasher who’s penis she then traps in a book. Seeing as you don’t even see the offending article, it’s a mystery as to why this was removed from the Export Cut. Anyway, we cut to panic on the streets and a bank robbery which Ng and some colleagues interrupt. The film kicks off with Michelle Yeoh in the thick of the action, as she thwarts an armed robbery. While there are obviously a few edits, it’s still immediately apparent that Yeoh is performing nearly all her own stunts, as she hangs on to the side of a car, runs down a road, leaps on to a car roof, and engages in a shootout, culminating in a riff on Dirty Harry. Ng tells a wounded robber “I have no idea if there are bullets in this gun”, who replies “Give it a go, if you have the guts”, whereupon she shoots his hand off! Inspector Callaghan would really be impressed. Ng returns to the station to receive loads of bunches of flowers for her heroism, including one from a guy named Norden with whom she’s going to spend a holiday with in England, to the disappointment of her immediate boss. But at the moment Norden is doing his job as an undercover policeman and is shot dead when a deal goes wrong. Petty crooks Asprin and Strepsil accidentally take the macguffin that’s this microfilm and Ng arrives on the scene just too late and fails to spot both Strepsil and Dick the killer, because they’re both dressed as waiters. The duo take it to Panadol and rescue him in the nick of time from people who are understandably pissed off because the faces on the fake IDs he’s given them are starting to disappear. But then all Panadol, Asprin and Strepsil do is bicker and cheat each other, even though there’s also clearly affection here, Hark, Hoi and Sham all showing great chemistry even if their getting at each other perhaps outstays its welcome.

Panadol sells the passport with the microfilm in it to another criminal who attempts to leave the country with it, and is caught there by Ng, but, after a short chase, it’s Inspector Morris, who’s been sent over by the “Commercial Crime Bureau”, who saves the day. The fleeing villain grabs her and puts a gun to her head, little knowing that he’s picked the wrong lady to take hostage in what’s simply a fantastic big screen introduction of Rothrock to audiences. Afterwards Morris tries the rough way to get him to talk at the station, but Ng isn’t too keen on this type of police behaviour and lets the guy go, allowing both Morris and Ng to track down the source of the phony passport to Panadol. You just know that Asprin and Strepsil will soon be hunted by the police as well as the villainous Mr. Tin and his men, and that’s about it in terms of plot, which becomes rather stretched out in the second half. But then this is a film which, especially in its Threatrical Cut, spends a lot of time on comedic set pieces. The most elaborate is the Hung, Chiang and Ng sequence which has them as old men [via no more than gray hair dye] in a hospital ward. When a pretty nurse comes in, they and another patient jump on her, but it’s not her they’re after, it’s the food she carries. Then another nurse enters and orders them to not just stop eating the chicken they took but to spit it out – which they do, after which it’s carried away to presumably be given to some other people. It’s quite amusing, as is a long-running gag about blank guns and hand grenades which reaches its peak in the final act. Some of the scenes where people just act goofy don’t work as well, but there’s also surprising tragedy which does hit home a bit, and a final scene which leaves us with the thought that these guy’s troubles are far from over.

Action scenes are undeniably good but short. While we see Rothrock showcase her considerable flexibility and kicking skills in the airport sequence, martial arts are generally held off, though Hark does some impressive flips and falls in his introductory sequence even if his character still gets beaten up – in fact most characters get beaten up except for our heroines, which I suppose goes some way to re-adressing the imbalance of them not having as much screen time as the male stars. Shun and Hoi also get small pieces of action to perform, and familiar baddie Wei cuts loose a little in a short mass bar brawl which randomly turns into a showcase for some bike stunts. Yeoh is finally able to fight when she and Rothrock battle Wei in a pubic bathroom and a night club, though it’s bizarre because the night club set looks nothing like the real night club we saw a few minutes ago. Did the crew have  to abandon it? The two-on-one fighting is superbly timed though, so it never feels like one actor is waiting on the sidelines for their turn to jump in and attack. And then there’s the stunning grand finale where the duo come up against lots of henchmen, Chung Fat and Wei again which, with its smashing of glass and jumping onto a chandelier especially, feels like it influenced the climax of Police Story even though that came out only two weeks after, despite some doubling for the stars. Highlights include Yeoh [and it’s definitely her] flipping backwards over a banister and through glass, and Rothrock showing off her wushu weapon skills with a wooden pole – and just look at those stuntman falls including one from a fairly great height where the guy lands on his knees. There’s even some fun dialogue. “All women are bitches”, “Wouldn’t that make you a son of a bitch”? “Finally you use the knife”, “Of course I’m the bad guy”. The violence is a bit nastier if not particularly explicit throughout, from Panadol being dragged by a hook put in his mouth to a shot of a dead man with shades of glass sticking out of his face.

Bonkers ’80s fashions and odd villain outfits add to the amusement. Rothrock and Yeoh, who wears glasses for some of her early scenes than ditches them though the script makes no reference to this fact, are an amazingly cool team that we should have been able to see again, but the emphasis on comedy elsewhere means that their screen time together isn’t all that substantial. We see that Ng and Moss don’t see eye to eye, but there’s little sense of the journey from this to them becoming much more in agreement; suddenly they’re off to get the bad guys and that’s it. James Tien does his soon-to-be-familiar villain duties and gets to laugh a lot, and the wonderful Wu Ma makes the most of his cameo, competing with another cop for the number of parking tickets he can issue in one day. Director Corey Yuen makes things flow much better than they perhaps ought to what with the cutting back and forth the two groups of leads and frequent switching of genre, and cuts the action slightly quicker than normal for the time. Romeo Diaz’s simple but quite propulsive electronic music score incorporates some tiny snatches of the scores from Dirty Harry [Lalo Schifrin] and Halloween [John Carpenter], or maybe those bits were put in by somebody else? I thought that the days of doing this sort of thing were gone by now. Though more of an archetypal Hong Kong movie melding of action and comedy than a fully fledged “Femme Fatale” punch and kick showcase, Yes, Madam! still invariably entertains and is full of that energy that made so many of us fans of Hong Kong movies back in the day.

Rating:

SPECIAL FEATURES

Limited Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling [2000 copies]

1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray of the original theatrical cut from a brand new 2K restoration [93 mins]
This is a typically excellent presentation from Eureka. At times it even seems like we’re watching a much more recent film – well it would if it wasn’t for the fashions. An attempt at colour coding here and there makes it look visually very appealing at times, and the grain is extremely evenly managed.

1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray of the international export cut from a brand new 2K restoration [87 mins]
I didn’t watch this version this time, but remembered it fairly well from previous viewings. It’s hard to day which edit is better. The Export Cut is tighter, but loses one of the major comedy set pieces and has that stupid scene from another film replace the flasher scene at the beginning, while we’re so familiar with the actual voices of Yeoh and Rothrock that it’s weird hearing them sound differently while speaking English.

Theatrical Cut – Original Cantonese mono audio (optional theatrical and home video mixes)

Theatrical Cut – Optional English 5.1 dubbed audio
I tried out some of this dub and as usual it lacks the flavour of the Export Cut dub.

Export Cut – Original “classic” English mono
From what I heard, this is rather good. The voices seem to come from English rather than American dubbers.

Optional English Subtitles, newly translated for this release

Brand new feature length audio commentary by Asian film experts Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) & Michael Worth
And so it’s on to the talk tracks, and I do so look forward to listening to these. Djeng and Worth seem so at ease with each other that they’ve been getting more light-hearted of late while still providing a contrast to the frequent jokeyness of Leeder and Venema. As usual, Djeng leads, but Worth certainly adds worthwhile counterpoint. Djeng is typically on the ball with identifying locations [including some bizarre geography], and we also learn that magnetic tickets can indeed open doors, and that the guy playing snooker well is a real top grade player named Gary Kwok .Meanwhile Worth points out Yuen’s filming style which would evolve, exhibits awe of the way Djeng is able to race through potted biographies extremely fast [yet always able to be understood], and cleverly observes that much of the story consists of “Obtuse ways of getting things”.  I found this track to be superior to their last two or three, it’s great stuff indeed.

Brand new feature length audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema
The far more comedic duo’s track is also probably their best of late; they may sometimes go off on tangents but it’s almost always interesting and informative – such as hearing that Danny Lee played policemen so often he was treated like one and got informed of cases. The two think that Norden was actually up to no good rather than being a proper undercover cop and find it odd that the script then forgets about his death; okay maybe I was wrong. Leeder calls Man Hoi “The cute version of Yuen Biao”, and recalls that Hark’s brother once owned a chemists near where he lived though he didn’t realise it was Hark’s brother, while we also have explained to us a line about nighbtlucbs; turns out that the word “nightclub” in Hong Kong refers to a brothel. The two even point out locations that Djeng didn’t and go into more detail about an actor named – “Japan Boy”. Brilliant.

Cynthia Rothrock on “Yes Madam” [20 mins]
Rothrock, looking very good indeed and seeming happy to talk., answers various questions. We here how she used to watch martial arts movies but never thought she’d ever be in one, that she thought Yes Madam! would be a period film, and that she thought the crazy, safety last, make it up as you along Hong Kong way of filmmaking was the way it was done generally. Most interestingly, she says how she made up her own dialogue so it partly matched the Cantonese syllables. She seems happy to talk.

Cynthia Rothrock select-scene commentary [12 mins]
Djeng chats to Rothrock over the airport and final set pieces, recalling the shooting. Unfortunately they don’t talk over the bathroom / nightclub fight; I’d have loved to hear Rothrock’s comments on the peculiar set and why they couldn’t film in the nightclub they’d been previously using. But it’s nice to hear how she and Yuen would bring in ideas on set, while learning that the end brawl took a month to shoot with no days off reminds us of how intense making these movies was.

A Conversation with Mang Hoi [15 mins]
A very quiet and serious Hoi, who also co-produced this film, begins by describing his Peking Opera background and being a child actor before not just revealing that Hung was meant to direct Yes, Madam! but contradicting what Rothrock has said about one of the leads originally intended to be male; he says that it was always the plan to have two female leads. I wonder who’s right? He also tells us that not a single stuntman got hurt, which is hugely surprising, and that the ending was added late in the day.

Michelle Yeoh interview [archival] [15 mins]
On to the older features, though this one is actually from the Hong Kong Legends DVD of Yeoh’s Magnficent Warriors. The interview was both recorded very quietly and sometimes has background noise intrude. Yeoh, who doesn’t speak or read Chinese [or at least didn’t back then], amusingly tells of first seeing Jackie Chan and thinking “I recognise that nose from somewhere” , describes her injury while making Ah Kam, Stuntwoman injury where she misjudged an 18-foot jump from a bridge onto a truck, fracturing a vertebra and was in traction for a month, and tells of how she wasn’t so much competing with Chan on Police Story 3 as pushing herself to do better. Yeoh is always a pleasure in interviews.

Battling Babes [archival featurette] [10 mins]
This has that annoying Hong Kong Legends techno playing in the background, while the ladies interviewed don’t have time to provide much proper insight into being a female action star. Still, it’s great to see Yukari Oshima [a real favourite of mine], Michiko Nashiwaki [showing a cut she got from My Lucky Stars], Sarah Michelle Geller’s stuntwoman Sophie Crawfor, Kathy Long and Rothrock, some of them doing training or workouts.

Hong Kong Theatrical Trailer [4 mins]

UK Home Video Trailer [1 mins]

Reversible sleeve design

A Limited Edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by James Oliver [2000 copies]

Though maybe a bit of a mishmash in tone and too low on action for some, “Yes, Madam” remains a quintessential Hong Kong movie and is given an excellent release by Eureka. Recommended!