The Mighty Gambler
     
                
Director: Tony Lou Chun-ku
Year:  1992
Rating: 6.5
This is great fun. A terrific Girls with Guns film that has fallen between the cracks. It feels a bit herky-jerky jerry-built as actors come and then disappear for long periods of time to reappear later on and characters who seem to be dead and then are alive. I would guess that they made the film around the schedules of actors like Francis Ng, Alex Man, Alex Fong and Michiko Nishiwaki but the consistent presence is Sibelle Hu in a totally action packed role.




It is easy to forget that when Sibelle entered into the Taiwanese film industry she was promoted as a beauty and perhaps the successor to Brigitte Lin in the Taiwanese Weepy genre. And that is what she appeared in for a few years with titles like I Sing, I Cry (1979), Your Smiling Face (1979), A Flower in the Storm (1982). But the Weepie was on the wane and in 1985 she was a Police Inspector in two Lucky Star films and that was her entre when the Girls with Guns films hit their stride in the late 1980s. She was never the athlete that some of the others were but she faked it pretty well and used doubles when needed. And she was still beautiful and could act.






This is pretty standard gangster and gambling fare but director Tony Lou Chun-ku (The Lady Assassin, The Return of the Bastard Swordsman, Dreaming the Reality, Holy Virgin vs the Evil Dead) and choreographer Chui Fat (Holy Virgin, Devil Hunters, Crystal Hunt) keep it moving and entertaining - a lot of action interspersed with gambling scenes and some drama. Not a peep of romance thankfully. And only a touch of humor. Sibelle is the daughter of a a triad owner of a gambling casino. When he gets it right between the eyes by assassin Alex Fong she takes over. She has two major problems. The Japanese want to make a deal with her and when their envoy is murdered his brother Alex Man comes looking for revenge - but no one is sure who did it. Then Fong reappears - turns out that in a scene at the beginning of the film we witnessed Sibelle's father kill his father as both children looked on. He too wants revenge and killing the father was not enough.





As side characters we get a threesome - Francis Ng who works as a waiter at the casino, his friend Robert Mak as a gambling addict usually on the losing side - and their cousin who has just come from China. On her first day she stops a thief and turns him over to the cops  with the stern admonition of take care of this capitalist scum. This is of course Michiko and she is a delight in this film - she has four fight scenes - short but very nice. At one point the bad guys bring in a female martial arts killer and you know they will have to match up. They do. With swords. A bunch of action scenes throughout but they save the budget for two end to end ones at the climax. Big shootouts and a lot of blood. Over the top and ridiculous. I loved it.