I love 1980’s kung fu movies. They’re sped up and usually packed with fast and furious action whilst bringing the right amount of cheesy to the screen.
This 80’s action flick is ‘Iron Angels’, also known as simply ‘Angels’, ‘Fighting Madam’ or ‘Midnight Angels’. Either way, they’re Angels in the same way as Charlies Angels – only with two kung fu female fighters instead of 3 Hollywood hotties.
The movie kicks off as we see interpol rolling up it’s sleeves and kicking ass by tearing up the source of the local drug lords supply – Opium fields over in Thailand. After their success, everyone is happy except, of course, all of the drug lords.
So the drug lords head on out and start murdering the men involved with the Raid. This leads to some further action from the police – tracking down a team of girls (and one guy) to protect them – The Angels! (I know it sounds lame, but it’s not that bad).
The Angels then head out and try to start tearing apart the bad guys in typical action chick style while meeting young men and having little crushes on them.
I already references the similarity between Charlies Angels and this film, so it’s kind of like ‘The Hong Kong Angels’ except the women can actually perform some decent martial arts.
Other than the superficial side of things, it’s all pretty similar at the core. These girls get out and investigate, they break into the bad guy’s operations and retrieve information using handy little spy style gadgets before getting onto their next lead and repeating the process.
It’s really nothing outstanding in my opinion, and is another standard Hong Kong action flick from the 80’s. The weakpoint, however, is the lack of action. There are very few fights and the fights you get are short and can hardly be classed as ‘fights’. The longest fight takes place right at the end of the movie but it’s over quite quickly also.
Of course I did appreciate the girl on girl fights as the movies main villain happens to be female also. A little predictable but it all fits.
The talent and speed of 80’s Kung Fu flicks is there but it just doesn’t appear enough to entertain. The potential was there but it was unfulfilled in my opinion.
The story itself is pretty standard, and the action lacks so I might summarize this (very short) review of ‘Iron Angels’ as a movie which falls short of the ‘cool 80’s kung fu movie’ label and isn’t really worth the time. Your opinion may differ, but I definitely won’t be watching it again.
Considering most Schwarzeneger films had similar story lines and a lot less talent with a larger cast of high end stars, the Iron Angels series is better than others. Remember also Yukari Oshima was the top female martial art I n her time, hardly O.k. Who wrote this stuff. I was brought up here and can the same for many films with higher budgets and bigger stars!
You’re right, a lot of more expensive films are worse. I “wrote this stuff” But I have to give my honest opinion, I thought this film as OK and it didn’t do anything for me. Everyone is different man, don’t take it so seriously.