Yes, Madam!

Mad Men VS Madams

Yes, Madam!
aka Police Assassins
aka In The Line Of Duty 2
Directed by Corey Yuen
Hong Kong 1985
D & B Films  Co. Ltd/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B

Okay, this gets really confusing... this is the first in a series of films that came to be known as the ‘In The Line Of Duty’ series but didn’t get that moniker until the filming of another movie, which also became known as In The Line Of Duty 2, in addition to its real name. But then this ‘first’ film known as Yes, Madam! was marketed internationally as, um, In The Line Of Duty 2 and... yeah, it gets even more complicated than that with the various titles and switched sequences... I have no idea which one I’m supposed to watch next. What do they think this is... a Caroll Baker giallo?

Anyway, Michelle Yeoh had only done two movies prior to this one and this was her first starring role. Meanwhile, the producers wanted to create a new male action hero to co-star in the movie to be ‘the new Bruce Lee’. Various people from a kung fu school in the USA were sent over to audition and some of the ladies went along too. When Corey Yuen and the producers saw what Cynthia Rothrock was able to do, they changed their ideas and rewrote the role for her... this was her first film and she is the first caucasian actress to headline Hong Kong movies.

The plot deals with Yeoh’s Inspector Ng trying to stop bad guys from finding some small time crooks who accidentally become embroiled with some microfilm (remember the days of microfilms in movies being a big deal?). To help her, because it all started when a high ranking police inspector from Scotland Yard is murdered for the microfilm... another ‘English’ police inspector is sent to give Ng a hand... which is Rothrock as Inspector Carrie Morris. After that it’s all comedy and bits and pieces of action (much less action than was shot due to running time constraints) as Yeoh and Rothrock’s characters try and keep tabs on three small time criminals - named Aspirin, Panadol and Strepsil - before they get themselves killed and the microfilm is destroyed.

The humour, like a lot of these Hong Kong films, is more than a little broad but the stunts and action sequences, most of which were performed by the actors themselves such as Yeoh and Rothrock (who got a lot of bruises for their seven month shoot... Rothrock got a torn inner ear for good measure, too), is pretty good and inventive. This was the first time Rothrock used her signature move ‘the scorpion kick’ in a movie... the choreographer asked her if she wanted to throw anything of herself into the mix and she showed him that move and he definitely wanted it in the film. I’m actually surprised by these two actresses having this as their first big roles because, I have to say, they both seem pretty confident in this and make it all look easy.

Despite not quite having as much action as I was expecting, the film still seems to hurtle along at a blistering pace... the comedy might be a bit too unsubtle at times but you certainly won’t get bored with this one. There are a couple of nice highlights too, such as, at the end of her first big action sequence in the film, Michelle Yeoh gets a Dirty Harry moment where she tells the villain she is pointing her shotgun at that she doesn’t know if there are any shells left in the gun and that he would maybe like to try his luck. Another nice moment in terms of editing is when Cynthia Rock saves the life of Panadol (played by famous director Hark Tsui) by shooting a rope from around his neck when he’s hanging off of a wall... the rope breaks and he lands in a chair at the police station, courtesy of a nicely placed edit and shot match. Good stuff.

One thing which felt a little off to me was the moment when a hitman digs his silencer into an apple and puts the apple in the mouth of his victim to stop him from calling out. When he shoots the guy point blank through the mouth, there seems to be absolutely no exit wound on the guys head, even when the camera shows the dead guy later. Just felt a bit odd... hardly any blood for such a close up piece of violence.

The other thing that felt way off was that, at the end of the day, the bad guy gets killed but only while he’s going quietly with the police, by one of the comic relief thieves. In fact, the two heroines and their accomplices are all under arrest for trespassing on the villain’s property and, if not for the murder, he would have gone scott free. The film then just stops and you assume all the good guys and gals go to prison for their actions... a really unusual ending for sure.

But, nevertheless, I found Yes, Madam! to be a pretty entertaining movie and Yeoh and Rothrock make a really good team here (I believe they also became fast friends in real life... Rothrock didn’t know the language when she came over to Hong Kong but Yeoh knew some English and they used to go out to dinner every night, is my understanding). It’s a shame the two didn’t do more of these films together, for sure.