Return of Iron Angels

A third world terrorist group plan to put a stop to Thailand's rapid economic growth. Special agents The Angels are assigned to prevent them from doing so.

The premise for Iron Angels 3 is about as formulaic as it gets, but that doesn't deter director Stanley Tong from pulling out all the stops to entertain his audience, his film packed from start to finish with amazing fight scenes and incredible ballistic action.

The lovely Moon Lee returns as agent Moon, who goes undercover to get to a knife-wielding, croc-stroking villainess, while Alex Fong as Alex Fong (the film gets no prizes for original character names) immerses himself in the Muay Thai boxing scene, for reasons that I can't remember (not that it matters, this plot-line existing solely to allow for a hard-hitting match between Alex and a very tough opponent).

After loads of well choreographed and expertly executed martial arts scenes in which our heroes square up against countless bad guys, the film closes with a rollicking finale that sees Alex and comedy sidekick Kwai (Ralph Chen) take to the sky on jetpacks with mounted machine guns to mow down scores of henchmen, while Moon battles the villainess to the death.

Also adding to the fun is the silly Bond-style computer expert called-you guessed it-Computer (played by Mark Steinborn), whose high-tech gadgetry is hilarious (check out his impressive bank of diode-blinking computers and the silly mini-bomb detector), an African despot who harshly punishes his inept henchmen (and who goes unapprehended by the end of the film), plus quite a lot of bloodshed, including countless bullet squibs, a spurting knife wound, and a juicy gunshot to the head.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

MIDNITE ANGELS 3, aka IRON ANGELS 3, is the third title in the popular girls with guns series made in Hong Kong. This one sees a returning Moon Lee teaming up with a bunch of new guys in order to tackle a terrorist threat in Thailand. It's definitely cheaper and more slapdash than the previous entries in the series, although the direction by popular Jackie Chan director Stanley Fong remains fresh and invigorating.

The film kicks off with an expertly-staged assassination scene before moving through various cheap and cheesy situations. There's a random fight on a train which is quite poorly played out and seems to have been included as a homage to FROM Russia WITH LOVE! Moon Lee goes undercover in the terrorist organisation and then the film slows down for half an hour with a bizarre interlude involving Muay Thai boxing and other, uninteresting characters.

Thankfully things pick up for a bizarre, action-focused climax which has to be seen to be believed. These guys really go in for the overkill with a blitz of violence involving a huge body count and a guy on a jet pack going around machine-gunning an army of bad guys! There are martial arts bouts too, although the badly-acting villains are undistinguished and only Lee stands out amid the performers. The two things that spoiled this film for me were the awful dubbing and the full-screen print which cuts off much of the action on either side of the screen; I can only hope that I get to see a widescreen subtitled print one day at which point I'm sure my enjoyment of the film would increase.

It was Ok, with the humor scenes missing by a mile while the action scenes were well done.The leading man was well dubbed, but his side kick was such a relentless pain in the backside that it almost ruined the movie. Definitively an upgrade from the Godfrey Ho films coming out at that time. There are a few excellent battles and a couple of Kung Foo scenes that go on too long of course, but it is definitely worth watching with the lady's being so so at best.

Well choreographed fighting is the only real highlight here, as the story is a pastiche of cliches. Worth a look if you're a hardcore fan of the genre, otherwise avoid.

The Iron Angels (Alex Fong, Moon Lee, Kharina Sa, Fong's new male partner, and another guy called "The Computer" - no sign of Elaine Lui this time) go to Thailand to stop some terrorists. That's pretty much all the plot you need for this one. For pure fighting fans, this is probably the best film in the series. Moon Lee has more fight scenes than in the previous films and looks pretty lethal: one of her best moves is when she jumps on a guy, wraps her legs around his waist, flips backwards, lands on top of him and punches him straight on his face! And Fong has an extended Muay Thai ring match against a local fighter. But shootout fans won't be disappointed, either; a gunfight near the end has an INCREDIBLE body count that easily rivals that of most war movies. The girls-with-guns factor is brought down a little by the absence of Elaine Lui, and the fact that Kharina Sa is given nothing to do, but goes up again with the addition of several female baddies, the leader of whom is a pretty muscular blonde. There are also notable Bond references: we get the female version of the Bond vs. Red Grant train fight in "From Russia With Love" as Moon Lee takes on a Japanese killer lady (who even has shoe-knives!), the blonde villainess pets (not a cat but) a baby croc, and at the end the heroes attack the terrorists on jetpacks like the one Connery used in "Thunderball" - only these are equipped with inexhaustible machine guns! (**1/2)