Together Again

Executioners is Johnny To's sequel to The Heroic Trio - at least in the sense that Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui and Maggie Cheung play the same roles. Other than that, totally different movie.

The first one was a classic three fighting women kung fu movie, taking place more or less in present-day Hong Kong (with superheroes, demons, etc). This one starts where the last one left off. Then, in the first minute, there is a nuclear war that leaves the whole world desperate for clean water. Didn't see that coming, did you?

Anita Mui, widowed in the first film, is retired from superheroing, holed up in her old mansion with her daughter. Michelle Yeoh is an ascetic aid worker, helping the refugees. Maggie Cheung is a bad-ass leathergirl water pirate outlaw. And so it goes.

The villains are a water industrialist, hideously deformed by radiation, corrupt government officials, a white-robed mystic who is their dupe. The feel is grimy, downbeat and post-apocalyptic. The fights are just as fantastic.

So, if you liked The Heroic Trio, here's more the same, and something completely different.