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Asia's top female assassins Eileen (Maria Jo) and Amy (Yoko Miyamoto)
are both independently from each other hired to kill crime kingpin Wong
(Lin Chung) by his second in command Albert (Lawrence Ng), who wants to
take over his organisation, and despite the interference of CIA agent
Betty Lee (Sibelle Hu), the hit works out smooth as can be - but then the
troubles start, because Albert is not one who likes loose ends, so he
decides to hire Eileen and Amy again - to kill one another. His scheme
almost works, too, until he tries too hard to get rid of the girls and
sends a bunch of hitmen after them. The hitmen almost finish their job and
injure both girls badly, but when on the run, the two notice they are
actually on the same side, and ultimately they are saved by Sylvia (Sylvia
Sanches), a prostitute with a heart of gold, who nurses Eileen and Amy
back to health - and is shot dead as a thank you by Albert's hitmen, who
are still after the girls. Amy runs into her boyfriend (Harold Low), but
she realizes too late that he has long betrayed her and sided with Albert,
and he shoots and gravely injures her and would kill her too, if he wasn't
shot dead by Eileen first. Eileen drags injured Amy to her apartment,
not knowing that a killer is waiting there already who quickly blows Amy's
brains out. Only then does Eileen realize the killer is actually her own
brother, whose studies in France she thought she was financing with her
hits. The siblings want to shoot each other but can't, and soon they come
to the conclusion they have to have their revenge on Albert - and they
actually take down him and his entire army of bodyguards as an army of
two, but Eileen's brother is killed in the process and she herself is
gravely injured - which is when CIA's Betty Lee finally catches up with
her, to arrest her as the last woman standing ... In 1990, when
Godfrey Ho was still busy making bottom-of-the-barrel (yet highly
entertaining) cut-and-paste films about ninjas and kickboxers, he
surprised everybody by suddenly directing one of the best girls-with-guns
movies of its time: I mean, this film is not just good for a director of
Z-grade ninja flicks, this film is really good, it's full of nicely
orchestrated action setpieces, it's perfectly paced, beautifully shot,
features a thought-through story with scarcely any leaps of reason, has
heart, and at least some of the characters are fleshed out. The only flaw
(if you can call it that) I could actually think of is Sibelle Hu, whose
character serves no real narrative purpose, whose outfits, makeup and hair
all look so horribly 1980's they must have looked horrible even then, and
whose acting range is below limited - but then again, she gets into fights
quickly in pretty much all of her scenes, and her martial arts are
impeccable (she's possibly the best martial artist in the entire film), so
somehow she redeems herself. Strongly recommended, actually.
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amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Lethal Panther at adultvideouniverse.com
