Royal Warriors

Michelle Yeoh is very cool. That could be the review; that's enough to make Royal Warriors worth watching.

It's a bit of an oddity as a film, starting out with a dance number and then becoming surprisingly dark, not to mention jarringly violent. It's that kind of hard-edged martial arts movie where the punches and collisions look genuinely painful, and some of the stunts look remarkably dangerous. There are certain parts that aren't entirely believable (an overuse of sped-up footage at the end, and a mat poorly disguised as pavement early on), but most of the action's done really well.

I think it's a movie that hits the ground running to the point where it runs out of steam a little by the final act. It flounders a bit to get to the final action sequence, but once it gets there, it does work.

Some of the melodramatic elements didn't always work for me either, but the core of what's needed for a Hong Kong action movie to shine is intact here, and so I mostly liked Royal Warriors. Michelle Yeoh is very good, and it's interesting seeing a young Hiroyuki Sanada here too, given both he and Yeoh have seen their popularity reach new heights (at least internationally) during the early 2010s. They're both very good here, too.

This is some of Michelle Yeoh's best work, alongside Magnificent Warriors and Yes Madam (A.K.A. In The Line of Duty or Police Assassins). This movie has a mix of drama, hard-hitting action, and comedy (little less on comedy though).

In my opinion, this movie could've done without Michael Wong. He tries to create a lovable character but he just seemed to get in the way of the movie. Well, I guess the movie needed some comedy. I appreciate the casting of Henry Sanada (Hiroyuki Sanada) in the film. After Ninja in the Dragon's Den, I was hoping he would continue to pursue action flicks. His martial arts skills always seems to impress me. His character in the film is portrayed as cool and slick, but if provoked, can be aggressive. Michelle Yeoh's character is very dedicated to her work as a police officer. She will enforce the law by any means.

The action in this film was very excellent and brutal. The club scene was the best. I'm pretty sure the actors and actresses had to use some ointment to take care of the bruises after some of the scenes. Groundwork dominated this film. I really didn't notice wirework.

Overall, this a great film. The replay value is very high. Besides the action, drama and a little comedy gave the film a good mix. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Final Judgement: ****/****

For those who are familiar with the action side of Michelle Yeoh only from her later blockbusters like "Tomorrow Never Dies" or "Police Story 3", prepare for an eye-opening experience. She has rarely fought (or looked) better than she does in "Royal Warriors", a film made early (1986) into her career. Several of her moves will have you going "WOW!". Unfortunately, there are some problems that keep this film from being as good as it could have been. For one thing, there is too much gratuitous violence: I'm referring especially to the nightclub scene, which has at least a dozen innocent bystanders mercilessly gunned down. The nastiness of the villains comes through clearly enough through their other acts - that scene was overkill (pun not intended). For another thing, Michelle Yeoh has surprisingly few fight scenes: after her 2 in the first 10 minutes, there are no more than 3 in the rest of the film. And then there's Michael Wong, who's a pretty poorly written character: he acts as if he's in a romantic comedy, always flirting with Michelle and making jokes, when in reality he's in a grim drama, where almost no lives are spared. In fact, Michelle tells him straight to his face what is wrong with his character, which suggests that the writers knew it as well - so why did they write him to be this way? I'm still giving "Royal Warriors" a relatively high rating because of the action scenes - I just wish the rest of the movie had lived up to them. *** out of 4.

Fine follow up to Yes Madam. Not nearly as witty, but heavier on action (most of the scenes are very exciting with extremely tough baddies).

The last baddy is particularly good, with a silly mocking smile and grin. I loved the scene where he shoots the TV set.

The plot is by turns clever and cliched, and the "music" makes the whole thing feel much more cheesy than it otherwise would. Really, in some of these 80's Hong Kong films the DVD's should have an option of removable soundtracks. Alot of the films such as this would come across much stronger now without a synthesizer in the background banging away. Of course this would remove the campy bad guy forte chord which I know many viewers are endeared to.

Those who enjoy hard-edged action over wit might even prefer this to Yes Madam as the best of Michelle Yeoh's early action films.

This cops vs. terrorists chase flick featured a pretty familiar plot line - Yeoh stops a terrorist on board a plane, and the terrorist chief targets her and two male confederates for a rub-out.

But this is a must-see for Yeoh fans. The former (1983) Miss Malaysia first introduced her unsmiling, no-nonsense cop persona here and comes off as a kick-boxing female Charles Bronson. Yeoh's fabulous fight scenes (which, typically for any Hong Kong action star, she performed herself) and on-screen charisma made her a star in this role and it needs to be seen by her fans. It helps that the movie had a decent budget, with good looking production design and elaborate stunts to go with the martial arts. This is a first rate movie of its type.