She Shoots Straight | |
Director: | Corey Yuen |
Producer: | Chan Pui-wah Sammo Hung |
Starring: | Joyce Godenzi Carina Lau Sammo Hung |
Music: | Lowell Lo |
Cinematography: | Moon-Tong Lau Leung Chi-ming |
Editing: | Peter Cheung Keung Chuen-tak |
Studio: | Bo Ho Film Company |
Distributor: | Golden Harvest |
Runtime: | 94 min |
Country: | Hong Kong |
Language: | Cantonese |
She Shoots Straight (alternately Lethal Lady) is a 1990 Hong Kong crime action film directed by Corey Yuen, who also writer with Barry Wong and Yuen Kai-chi. The film stars Joyce Godenzi, Carina Lau, and Sammo Hung, who also producer with Chan Pui-wah. The film was released theatrically in Hong Kong on 4 July 1990.
She Shoots Straight turns on three plot axes. The first concerns the complications of a workplace romance and marriage between a dedicated policewoman “Mina Kao” (Joyce Godenzi) and her supervisor “Huang Tsung-pao” (Tony Leung). The second theme concerns opposition by the Huang family to the couple's impending union. Another policewoman, Mina's future sister-in-law “Chia Ling” (Carina Lau) is especially critical of apparent favoritism, and even makes a remark about her being Eurasian (this is not unique – a comparable epithet being made by Oshima's character to her guy opponent in “Close Escape”). The third axis provides a resolution as a gang of Vietnamese led by Yuan Hua (Yuen Wah) attempts a violent and risky robbery. After the gang is thwarted, a shootout ensues in which the police get the upper hand. Swearing revenge, Yuan Hua lays a counter-trap using Vietnamese jungle warfare devices. When Chia Ling – slighted over disciplinary action – impulsively investigates alone, she risks trouble. Mina and Tsung Po rescue her, but he is killed by a booby trap, dying in front of his sister and bride. United in their grief, the women must break the news to the Huang family at a celebration for their matriarch. This paves the way for a relatively straightforward vengeance sub-plot in which Mina and Chia Ling track the gang to a freighter in the harbor. In advance of reinforcements, they board the vessel to fight a life or death duel against gang members and crew wielding pistols, hatchets, knives or tools.