The Heroic Trio (1993)
Directed by: Johnnie To
Written by: Sandy Shaw
Starring: Anita Mui, Damian Lau, Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh
AKA DUNG FONG SAAN HAP
HONG KONG
RUNNING TIME: 83 mins
AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY, DVD [both Region A / 1 only], DIGITAL
REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera
Eighteen babies have been abducted iin Hong Kong in the past five months. The masked heroine known only as Wonder Woman – in reality Tung, the wife of a police officer named Lau who’s assigned to the case – fights off the abductor when she comes to steal the Commissioner’s son but loses her. The latter is actually another woman called Ching, who’s using an invisibility cloak borrowed from a scientist whom she rather liked. However, Ching is working for the “Grandmaster”, a powerful sorcerer who lives beneath the sewers, and who has loads of babies all born on the same month in his possession. Then a third woman appears on the scene; Chat the Thief Catcher, a carefree bounty hunter whom the Commissioner asks to get his son back. The three don’t seem to be strangers to one another, though events and the passage of time has made them behave like so….
I never got The Heroic Trio on DVD because I kept hoping for a ‘special edition’ release which never came, but watching and reviewing all these Hong Kong action movies of late resurrected my interest in obtaining one I absolutely loved back in the day, a time when it was all videos. Criterion’s North American Blu-ray is disappointing in terms of special features, hench my inability to tell you lots of facts about this film, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, now I’ve imported it, Eureka, 88 Films or Arrow Films bring out a much better version here in the UK. But of course it’s the film which counts most and, while the very low budget is more noticeable with the crisp clear picture, and its short running time means that a few set pieces feel slightly truncated, it’s still an often insanely exciting, over the top melding of the modern-set superhero movie, of which there had been several from Hollywood in the leadup to 1993, beginning with the Tim Burton Batman, and the Wuxia actioner, not long to be popularised in the west by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Crazy scenes of fantastical combat and wire-leaping alternate with strong sentimentality which, rather than seeming cloying, is rather fitting in its over the top nature. Humour is much less on show than you’d expect, and the film isn’t afraid to go really dark when it feels like it and may well seem mean spirited to some western viewers. It all takes place in a budget Hong Kong version of Gotham City, stylised lighting and smog machines working overtime so that sets can be limited and primitive. And then you have three of Hong Kong’s leading actresses – Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui – looking fabulous as they kick ass in what’s more than anything else a story of female bonding.
As we hear the radio report of these kidnapped babies, a couple are being shown a house by a clumsy escape agent who’s the only properly comical character in the film. This is police officer Lau and nice and domestic housewife Tung. The estate agent tells them that “this house needs a little modeling” though it’s actually a mess; never mind, a quick thrust with a beam frees a window, plus “birds singing and flowers blooming”. Tung actually likes it, “it has character”. Lau swings down the house on vines to nab a car thief; he’s the man, right? In the police station, a can of coke crushes by itself, a board falls down by itself and writing saying “your son will be next” – addressed to the Commissioner – is written by itself. “Why don’t you ask Wonder Woman for help” asks his wife as she’s taken to a heavily guarded nursery. “We have no way of contacting her” replies the Commissioner, but when the baby in his cot starts rising up in front of the air, a masked lady suddenly jumps into the fray after running across loads of power lines and, after injuring the kidnapper, with blood appearing on a wall, she takes the Commissioner’s son back, but the invisible menace make off with another baby and takes it to the underground lair of her master, Grandmaster, where she has a tussle with his henchman Kau. Grandmaster says that Ching’s heart is beating too fast, indicating that Ching has some emotion, is maybe having some second thoughts about what she’s doing. “China cannot be without an emperor” cries Grandmaster, who not much later reveals that he’s kidnapped kids who were all born in the same month and could potentially be emperors. No, I don’t understand it, but maybe Chinese folk will. Where’s audio commentary master Frank Djeng when we need him? With the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China looming in 1997, one can see this as showing the fears Hong Kong people had about it. But that’s about as much as we get of political commentary, and that’s just fine!
When Grandmaster and Ching talk, Ching experiences a flashback where a man and a girl are on top of a cliff looking down upon another girl who has to climb up to them on her own; she falls in. She then visits “The Doctor”, who doesn’t make much sense. He’s unaware that the cloak of invisibility that he’s just made but hasn’t perfected – it’s still partly visible in sunlight – is being used night after night by Ching, who always puts it back into the safe from which she took it. He’s determined to finish the job, but will then destroy it so the thing isn’t used for bad purposes. Ching is soon ordered to steal it and kill him, but her heart is beating even faster due to a certain reason. However, we haven’t yet meet our third lady. A motorbike suddenly appears from above with Chat on it, who then proceeds to put an explosive in a barrel which she ride so that she ‘s propelled towards three crooks who’ve taken over a chemical factory, then fire two of said crooks back to where the police are in other barrels! She offers to get the Commissioner’s son back for $500 000, and is willing to carry off another baby so Ching will show up, though the first thing to deal with is a loony who wants to kill all the babies in the nursery. Yes, there’s a lot of infant kidnapping, in peril and killing, and, when both other two ladies turn up to battle Ching, this particular baby is dropped and bloodily impaled on a nail. I can’t imagine that you’d ever have such a thing happen or definitely see such a sight in a western film, especially a fantasy one. The three ladies fight, bicker and don’t trust each other, but flashbacks show that they know each other, while they really do have to team up because Grandmaster and Kau are extremely powerful.
Tung aka Wonder Woman, called Shadow Fox in the English dub, is obviously a martial arts expert and likes to use a collapsible sword and butterfly wing-shaped throwing knives. Ching aka the Invisible Woman is an even more skilled fighter, unsurprisingly seeing as she’s played by Michelle Yeoh, likes to utilise a chain whip. And Chat, in the form of Maggie Cheung, who’s not afraid to pull silly faces in the service of her carefree character who’s much “lighter” than the other two, and not being involved with any guys, can certainly hold her own in terms of hand to hand combat, but is best off with guns and her motorbike; was Sarah Connor an influence? The three continually engage in combat with each other, with wirework which, despite its occasional visibility in HD [which is nothing new and can’t really be helped], is some of the best ever, the agility of the performers, the way they often pose purely for the camera,, the less obvious usage of stunt performers, the crisp editing of Kam Wah, the colourful cinematography of Poon Hang-Sang where even the few times the characters are in the countryside it looks glorious, the shots which frequently mimics comic book styling, all combining to create almost delirious entertainment. While Johnnie To directed a film little resembling the crime dramas which would make his name, it’s Ching Siu Tung who did these sequences, this film definitely being one of those where the fight choreographer or second unit director deserves as much credit as the listed director. it’s a shame that none of the Trio get to battle a large number of adversaries – I was so looking to that when I first watched this – but they do get to face off against Grandmaster and Kau, who – in perhaps the most memorable scene – is busy lopping off heads in a train station using a version of that old favourite the Flying Guillotine, before Tung and Chat enter on Chat’s motorbike which is spinning through the air repeatedly for nearly a minute. How did they pull that off? And then s train crashes in. The fight with Grandmaster, which goes down some odd routes because he will just not die, is of a decent length, though the bursts of full-on martial arts are still brief. However, it’s all just so exhilarating that it doesn’t matter too much.
The dramatic centre of the piece should be Ching’s torment and eventual conversion to the side off good, but this isn’t pulled off very well; we can’t understand why she continues to do bad, and the usually not just good but absolutely bloody awesome Michelle Yeoh doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to play this with conviction. Nonetheless the subplots of Tung and her husband who doesn’t know who she is, and Ching and the doctor who’s invention she’s using, and who’s just brought some dead plants back to life, do emotionally engage. They’re full of unabashed emotion, and would probably get the scorn of critics today, but then again we live in a time where sentimentality is generally looked down upon. And in The Heroic Trio everything is heightened, enhanced, taking place in an almost dreamlike or druggy haze, so potentially ludicrous situations or moments like when the doctor is falling ill but must go back onto his computer because he’s realised what will finally complete his work, seem fitting and even have the desired effect. Even when Tung is visiting a fortune teller and kids are blowing bubbles in slow motion around her, we don’t mind. When the three all recognise each other, it’s an excuse for a horse and bike chase and literal cliffhanging, and we feel both an emotional release and the incredible energy between the three. Far less pleasant is a scene when our heroines literally have to blow up babies. They’re doing it for a very good reason, but To can’t resist cutting to the kids looking scared and even wetting themselves [in shots cut from the UK video] in fear. It’s not an easy job. Somewhat lighter in nature is the way Kau loses one finger, sniffing it before eating it, then four others later on. But there’s undeniably a real harshness to the proceedings which I think is rather great.
William Hu’s music is fabulous, with an incredibly catchy main theme which sometimes speed up as the action hots up, while a powerful variation on it that appears a few times showing how just how much difference a few changes in chord notes can make. The music for the emotional stuff is lovely, if perhaps cheesy for some who won’t appreciate the honest directness of the sentiment employed. However, the score was obviously performed om the cheapest synthesiser around and often sounds like computer game music. I’d love to hear the different themes played on a better machine or even an orchestra But in the meantime The Heroic Trio still stands as a flawed highpoint – so still a highpoint then – of ’90s Hong Kong cinema, even if it didn’t do well with domestic audiences. Thinking about films [and TV] today, and seeing how often supposedly feminist but actually actively misandrist material is forced down our throats, makes The Heroic Trio seem even better, with screenwriter Sandy Shaw’s portrayal of strong yet relatable women in a world where men are largely ineffectual, yet which doesn’t come across as unpleasant agenda-pushing.
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