Magnificent Warriors (aka "Dynamite Fighters") (1987)
Starring: Michele Yeoh, Tung-Shing Yee, and Richard Ng
Director: David Chung
Steve's Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
Michele Yeoh stars as a confident, self-reliant bush pilot who is cashing in on the resistence to the Japanese invaders in 1930s China. The plot really gets going when she is recruited to assist a spy deep within Japanese held land and ends up becoming embroiled in the resistance efforts whole-hog when her Chinese patriotism can't allow her to stand by and let a city of innocent people be gassed to death by the nefarious Japanese Imperial Army.
The film features excellent cinematography, fine performances by all actors, and well-choreographed martial arts sequences. There were some silly sound effects related to those fight scenes, but that's to be expected in an older film like this one.
The only dissapointment I felt was that I would have liked to see some of the plot and characterzation touches explained a bit more. (For example, was the drifter related to our heroine or not?)
This was one of Michele Yeoh's very first films--and she looks VERY young in it!--and the DVD version contains a really interesting interview with her about its making.
