Royal Warriors (1986)

Royal Warriors (1986). 1h 36m | R

“For those who are familiar with the action side of Michelle Yeoh only from her later blockbusters like u0026quot;Tomorrow Never Diesu0026quot; or u0026quot;Police Story 3u0026quot;, prepare for an eye-opening experience. She has rarely fought (or looked) better than she does in u0026quot;Royal Warriorsu0026quot;, a film made early (1986) into her career. Several of her moves will have you going u0026quot;WOW!u0026quot;. Unfortunately, there are some problems that keep this film from being as good as it could have been. For one thing, there is too much gratuitous violence: Iu0026#39;m referring especially to the nightclub scene, which has at least a dozen innocent bystanders mercilessly gunned down. The nastiness of the villains comes through clearly enough through their other acts – that scene was overkill (pun not intended). For another thing, Michelle Yeoh has surprisingly few fight scenes: after her 2 in the first 10 minutes, there are no more than 3 in the rest of the film. And then thereu0026#39;s Michael Wong, whou0026#39;s a pretty poorly written character: he acts as if heu0026#39;s in a romantic comedy, always flirting with Michelle and making jokes, when in reality heu0026#39;s in a grim drama, where almost no lives are spared. In fact, Michelle tells him straight to his face what is wrong with his character, which suggests that the writers knew it as well – so why did they write him to be this way? Iu0026#39;m still giving u0026quot;Royal Warriorsu0026quot; a relatively high rating because of the action scenes – I just wish the rest of the movie had lived up to them. *** out of 4.”