Lethal Panther

My respects go out to the actors and actresses for their commitment to the hard physical and mental work they put into this 1990 movie. The movie is beyond doubt, an intense action based work of filmography. Criticism comes to mind for the need of more suspense, or of a greater hidden complexity of the story line. If movies are about portraits, landscapes, and persona, then these attributes could have become more developed. I especially send my best wishes to Yoko Miyamoto, to Maria Jo, and to Sibelle Hui for their courage to reflect upon these persona. Also, my best wishes go out to them for their future work in filmography.

From the opening scene of CIA agent Sibelle Hu telling a counterfeiter that she will let him go if he can beat her in a fight (!) to the scene of a prostitute comparing her job with that of a hired killer and coming to the conclusion that "my job is safer, unless the men have AIDS" (!), "Deadly China Dolls" is a ludicrous mess. Nothing here is original, nothing is believable, and nothing makes sense (the bad guys want to kill the killers so that there are no witnesses, and where do they try to do it? In supermarkets and strip clubs, among other places!). The action is sub-John Woo, and most of the villains are pathetically lousy shots. Maria Jo and Miyamoto Yoko do a fair job, but they are not interesting or engaging. And I don't know what's wrong with Sibelle Hu, but she looks awful in this movie. (**)

The movie is about two female assassins who got the job to kill each other.

This movie is typical Southeast Asia's movie from 90s which use to have lots of violence, killings, gang wars, double crossing, Erotic scenes but lacks good plot and script.

The characters have done the required hard work and some what did justice to their job.

Plot and script is the weakest part of the movie and so as the screenplay.

The movie has nothing to watch for apart from some erotic scenes.

This film begins with an agent for the CIA by the name of "Betty Lee" (Sibelle Hu) investigating a counterfeit operation in the United States and discovering that it originates somewhere in the Philippines. The scene then shifts to Japan where an attractive woman named "Amy" (Yoko Miyamoto) is in the process of seducing a high-ranking mob boss and then assassinates him while he is sleeping in bed. Around the same time, another beautiful assassin by the name of "Ilene" (Maria Jo) is equally busy killing a number of mobsters who are in the process of conducting a business meeting in Hong Kong. What essentially follows is that, unknown to each other, both assassins have been hired to kill a man by the name of "Charles Wong" (Chung Lam) who controls both the drug trade and the same counterfeiting ring that Betty Lee is currently investigating. But what neither Amy nor her unknown fellow assassin Ilene realize is that once their target has been eliminated their orders will be to kill one another so that there will be nobody left to identify the person who ordered the hit on Charles Wong. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a confusing low-budget action film which featured plenty of shooting and acrobatics but was rather weak in both character development and dialogue. To be sure both Yoko Miyamoto and Maria Jo were pleasing to the eye but the constant action became rather tedious at times. That being said, while this wasn't necessarily a bad film for the most part, it could have used a certain amount of fine-tuning here and there and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

This is far from great filmmaking, but it may well represent the pinnacle of femme fatale, or "girls with guns", action cinema. What it lacks in production value, it more than makes up for in attitude and content. The three female leads are superb in their unflinching no-nonsense roles, with Filipino beauty queen Maria Jo leading the pack with her sizzling intensity. Despite the low production value, poor continuity, and music score cannibalized from a dozen other films, this violent and bloody John Woo inspired actioner features impressive camera work, exciting gunplay, and energetic fight choreography. Apart from a handful of sleazy and gratuitous sex scenes, I would highly recommend this film to anyone interested in the genre.