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| Images courtesy of 88 Films |
The Hong Kong based action-comedy film series The
Inspector Wears Skirts between 1988 and 1990 saw three of Chinese cinema’s
funniest action stunts thrillers about an all-female special forces squad
called SKIRTS that arguably ushered in the careers of many involved with
it. Peaking with The Inspector Wears
Skirts III which brought the subset of characters onto a Casino Ship in the
middle of the sea for one of their most intense feats yet, the series could’ve
simply ended there on a high watermark with no need to come down for more. Sadly however, the producers at Golden Harvest
felt otherwise and were ready to reclaim the property with a fourth entry. Like all things dragged out for far too long,
only half the cast returns with mostly new characters trying to haggle the
remaining older characters into some dogged sort of reunion. It’s stagnant and the first time one of these
movies showed, despite the earnest efforts of Sandra Ng and Billy Lau, signs of
fading out of the limelight.
In this one, the SKIRTS squad has mostly disbanded with the notable absence of Sibelle Hu and Stanley Fung explained away through still photos and voiceover narration. Former SKIRTS officer Amy (Sandra Ng) now a mother and policewoman forcibly called back into action alongside mentally unstable May (Kara Wai) hastily brought back into the fray, the remaining SKIRTS are kinda rusty now at their skills sets and Madame Yang (Cynthia Khan) is called in to formally specially train both the old and new SKIRTS members in the hopes of keeping the moniker and unit from vanishing. Meanwhile mid-training, a real crisis breaks out involving a group of thugs who create a hostage situation involving the police commissioner’s son and Amy’s child.
Choreographed by Alan Chui and penned by Abe Kwong and Lawrence Lau, Wellson Chin’s attempt at kicking up dirt around the SKIRTS team one more time unfortunately despite some incredible fight sequences with Cynthia Khan and some fun antics with Sandra Ng and Kara Wai, this Inspector Wears Skirts film is tired and cumbersome. Continuing on with a movie without the franchise’s two main characters at the epicenter and trying to prop it up with a bevy of new characters including Moon Lee and Sheila Chan as Billy Lau’s character Nam’s henpecking wife seems like a misstep. Sandra Ng and Kara Wai are great and Cynthia Khan is a welcome new addition, but they can’t bolster this thing up all by themselves.
Visually speaking this one looks fine with decent cinematography by Cheung Yiu-Cho and sharp editing by Peter Cheung. The choreography by Alan Chui and actress Cynthia Khan are the real stars and as such the film feels like a launching pad for a new martial arts talent using the mostly over with Inspector Wears Skirts franchise as a launchpad. Cynthia Khan is fierce, sexy and easily upstages the few remaining SKIRTS characters still willing to come back for another paycheck. Kara Wai has fun acting crazy and neurotic while Sandra Ng mostly keeps up her troublemaking pity party antics amid launching into real fistfights. In an effort to make up for the missing two leads, Chin casts notable Chinese-American film critic Paul Fonoroff as the Chief Superintendent, Fung Woo as his superior officer and Jeong-il Choi as the nefarious gangster willing to put a classroom of children’s lives on the line to free his dad from prison.
While still packed with entertaining action-fight sequences and plentiful screwball comedy including but not limited to a running gag involving Nam’s jealous wife played by Sheila Chan getting into all sorts of wacky antics, this fourth and final The Inspector Wears Skirts film unfortunately feels like half of the three films preceding it. It simply doesn’t have the same hook or feel anymore and could well have been its own film without needing to draw some supporting characters back or brand itself as a SKIRTS entry. Yeah its produced and directed by Wellson Chin and as always 88 Films did a great job rendering the 2K digital restoration of the original camera negative on disc and their usual slipcover and reversible sleeve/poster art, but alas whereas the third entry kind of peaked the series with a bang, this fourth and final entry sadly is kind of a well-meaning whimper. Obviously fans of the other three will have to include this in their collection but it is undoubtedly the weakest of the tetralogy.
--Andrew Kotwicki