The Heroic Trio (1993)

I think a lot of people just love badly plotted Hong Kong films with cheesy, unconvincing action. The ecstatic reviews here for this movie are proof of that. But I don't just like cheesy movies simply because they are cheesy, and need a basic level of competence to enjoy something.The story, which is a mishmash of loosely strung together ideas that don't make any particular sense, involves three women with martial arts skills. One is in thrall to an evil weirdo, one helps the cops out, and the most interesting, played by Maggie Cheung, is a brassy mercenary. They fight, they team up, they make speeches, and it's all just terrible.A lot of the user reviews say that, whatever the lack of merit in the story, the film is redeemed by its great action scenes. To which I reply, huh? The action is terrible. That scene people seem to love where "wonder woman" runs along telephone wires? It's completely unconvincing; poor wire-fu that is unconvincing even without that discipline. Using slow-mo and quick shots, there's little indication that anyone has any martial arts experience (except Cheung, who looks pretty good), and you could easily cast grade-school children in the roles and get the same effect.If movies like Hero represent how amazing wire-fu action can be, The Heroic Trio just as ably represents how poorly it can be done.The one ingenious moment in the film, the final fight, is undone by some of the most terrible special effects I have ever seen in the history of motion pictures. Seriously, I've seen better special effects in films by high school students.The three actresses are pretty and probably can act (I saw a reasonably competently dubbed version, which means I can't really judge the acting), but the script and the action make this a complete waste of time. Unless you just want to see something really, really cheesy, in which case this is definitely the movie for you.

This movie I have caught a couple of times usually near the end of its run, but I still enjoyed what I saw. I saw the sequel in its entirety and it just did not measure up to this thrill ride as the last fight in this one is really rather cool. I can not say what the story was all I know is that there was cool fight scenes and a thrilling fight in the end between the three heroes and some weird demon like lady. I really want to see the whole movie because from what I seen in the ending credits there are a lot of cool action sequences that I missed and perhaps I can pick up what is exactly going on during the movie. Still the little I saw was very nice indeed, I usually pick it up with the strange guy with the cool basket weapon that he uses to take the head off some poor chap that seems to be a love interest of one of the heroic trio. I really did not pick up on the gals special powers or anything as it seemed like all they mainly did was kick a lot of butt with their karate. If I ever have a chance to buy this one on DVD I will leap at the opportunity.

"The last year the company Quality Films released in Mexico the collection "Cinema Xtreme: Asian Series", with a lot of excellent films". I wrote that in my comment for Chan-wook Park's Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA aka J.S.A: Joint Security Area (a film that I love by the way). Yesterday a friend of mine, my cousins and I founded in the local Blockbuster a bunch of DVDs from that collection in a very low price. I only got Natural City from those titles since I found some other gems with the same low price (for the record, I got the Criterion Collection DVD of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress for only $7) however my friend bought 4 titles from that collection including this film. We saw it and it was a lot of great fun!This film doesn't requires a very long comment since it is just a damn entertaining movie in which the visible wires in it will make you enjoy even more. It has certain elements to make special the relation between the three heroines and that elements will help in order to solute a very strong and difficult situation: someone is kidnapping babies. In that present we see Tung (Anita Mui) as a true crime fighter who is always closest to the criminals than her husband who is a cop. Is really funny because these two characters reminded me Superman, I mean for me has always been funny how Superman basically has the same appearance of Clark Kent, is like a damn insult to the intelligence of the people of Metropolis. On this film is the same since Tung only uses a little mask and her husband doesn't even imagine the other side of his woman. Anyway, near the end of the film the final battle between the Heroic Trio and the Evil Master has a nice end after a lot of fun however the Evil Master is not defeated at all and his last moment is definitely the cherry of the cake. That scene is hilarious, so cool and will reminds you Terminator. Is also memorable in that scene the head butt!This is an extremely enjoyable movie, short and full of fun action. I can resume all just by writing that now I really want my own DVD and the DVD of its sequel. I loved it!

Trying to come up with a pithy plot description for something like The Heroic Trio is all but impossible. The plot simply cannot be explained in a few short sentences. So I'll go with a very general plot description realizing I'm leaving a lot out – An evil demon is kidnapping male babies in hopes of finding the next Emperor of China. He hopes to use that baby to help him take over the world. Three competing female super heroes must put aside their differences and work together to defeat the demon.The Heroic Trio is like a comic book come to life. It has an almost dreamlike feel to much of it mixing elements of fantasy in places I hadn't expected. In fact, I was shocked to discover it's probably more fantasy than martial arts. It's quite an unusual narrative style that, as a Westerner, I'm not overly familiar with. Fortunately, I was able to just go with it and enjoy it. It's not too difficult though as director Johnny To filled The Heroic Trio with some amazing images. The flying motorcycle at the train station, the first descent into the underworld, and Michelle Yeoh's dance with the demon are incredibly unique and memorable. Visually, the movie is stunning.All three of the lead actresses – Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggie Cheung – are perfect in their roles. At first I was tempted to single Yeoh out for praise, but realized that may have had more to do with my familiarity with her than anything else. All three are outstanding and deserve to be mentioned together. I'm far from a marital arts expert, but I found the fight scenes, though disappointingly too brief, flawlessly choreographed. Other than the finale, one of my favorites featured Maggie Cheung and an automatic weapon facing off against four hooded assassins. Cool stuff! There are a few things that could have been different that would have made me enjoy The Heroic Trio even more. It seemed to me that the action and momentum of the movie was broken up far too often by scenes of schmaltzy sentimentality. And what was with the music? I understand the music won some awards, but it's hardly what I would have picked. I suppose that my complaints could be due to my Western sensibilities more than anything. As it is, I found The Heroic Trio an interesting and entertaining experience.