Magnificent Warriors

Magnificent Warriors  This film is set during the Japanese occupation of China and follows pilot Fok Ming-ming as she tries to help a leading member of the resistance. Things don’t quite go according to plan as she initially mistakes a conman for the agent. Later they are found by the real agent and the three of them start working together to thwart Japanese plans to build a chemical weapons factory in a remote city.

If you want lots of well-choreographed martial arts action combined with plenty of laughs you could do a lot worse than this. The story is fairly easy to follow and effectively introduces the key characters in an entertaining way before the main action gets underway. There are numerous action sequences throughout the film with the sense of danger increasing towards the end. These sequences are all impressive with great martial arts, some shooting and some impressive explosions. The cast is solid; most notably Michelle Yeoh who excels as Ming-ming. She really impresses in her fight scenes but also brings a sense of fun to her role without feeling silly. Richard Ng was a lot of fun as the roguish conman… I couldn’t help wondering if his character partly inspired ‘The Weird’ in the Korean film ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird’! I was a bit surprised that the film is rated ’18’ here in the UK as there is nothing too extreme shown; I suspect if re-rated it would only be a ’15’… and that due to certain language in an early scene. Overall I’d definitely recommend this to fans of action-packed, but not overly intense, martial arts films.