Middling Michelle

The martial arts fest continues with Magnificent Warriors (1987), starring my favorite female martial arts star, Michelle Yeoh.

The time is during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Yeoh is a pilot and adventurer, who flies into a remote town to extract the headman, who is fighting for the resistance. She quickly runs into Richard Ng, a comic relief character actor seen in the Lucky Stars movies. He is a drifter and a grifter, but she thinks he is her contact. We eventually meet her contact, a real secret agent. When they find the headman, he doesn't want to be extracted - he wants to make sure the Japanese don't build the poison gas factory they have planned for the town.

Because of her period flight jacket and bullwhip weapon, you will see Yeoh as something of an Indiana Jones figure. But mostly, she is just herself - a beautiful, kickass woman. The action is pretty much the whole story, with bullwhip, rope dagger, machine gun, and dynamite.

But this is pretty middling Michelle Yeoh - only her fifth role, five years before Heroic Trio. Also, the sets burned down before shooting, so the look was quite a bit cheaper than planned. But it has Yeoh, and that makes up for a lot.