Yes, Madam (

1985

) ½

A big part of the reason why I love Chinese cinema so much (and Hong Kong films in particular) is that the Chinese are absolutely shameless in their willingness to snatch the best bits of Western cinema and casually sprinkle them into their own homegrown films. Not even the legendary cinematic thieves in Italy steal so blatantly as their East Asian rivals, though this is less to do with personal scruples and more to do with the fact that their audiences had a better chance of having already seen the American movies they were stealing from. Yes, Madam starts off with an excellent example of cinematic theft when an armored car robbery interrupts Senior Inspector Ng of the Royal Hong Kong Police as she's in the process of arresting a flasher (being a virtuous Chinese woman she averts her eyes, even while handcuffing the perp). This being a Chinese action movie, the kinetic action sequence that follows is all but obligatory, but interestingly it ends with Ng pointing a shotgun at a crook on the ground as he eyes his discarded revolver. "I'm not sure whether there's any bullets.” Ng tells the criminal “You wanna take a risk?" She asks ruefully. Well, if you're gonna steal from Dirty Harry (1971), you might as well take the most iconic scene while you're at it. Reversing the guns seems an odd choice because obviously nobody who saw Dirty Harry (1971) is going to go 'oh, I guess this isn't a ripoff of the “Are you feeling lucky, punk?” scene, because the cop has the shotgun and the crook has the pistol.' It makes director Corey Yuen seem like a clueless cheat switching around the title of the essay he's borrowed from the class nerd before turning it in to the teacher. But all the same, the very halfheartedness of the attempt to disguise the plagiarism only makes it more endearing to me.

With the action sequence hook out of the way, the plot can begin in earnest. Across town, in a fancy hotel a Westerner, one Richard Nornen, is in the process of selling evidence to local criminals. Evidently, his asking price was too high, as the local crime kingpin, Mr. Tin, has opted to execute the foreigner instead of paying him. There's one hitch though, the hotel has a pair of petty criminals working there named Aspirin and Strepsil. The duo, like any self-respecting Hong Kongnese hucksters, know that Westerners are better marks than the cagey locals so they swipe his luggage unaware that it contains the microfilm that Nornen was trying to sell to Mr. Tin. They take the haul to their friend Panadol (the legendary director/producer Tsui Hark at the tail-end of his acting career), who makes his living selling prop guns and fake IDs to local hoodlums. Initially, they aren't interested in the microfilm, but instead on Nornen's passport which they pawn off to a local criminal who needs to get out of the country fast. For the time being, the microfilm lies forgotten in a hiding spot in Panadol's absurd jungle-gym style apartment.

The local cops know something is up, thanks to a tip from Scotland Yard, who sends a liaison in the form of Carrie Morris to aid in the investigation. The Yard is rather stingy with the details though, but this turns out to be a reasonable precaution as the Hong Kong police are so rife with corruption that Mr. Tin has a fucking superintendent on his payroll. Consequently, when the crook with Nornen's passport is arrested at the airport before he can flee the country, both the cops and the criminals immediately know they need to find whoever made the fake ID to find the all-important microfilm. Unfortunately, criminals naturally have better ties to illegal activities than the police, so to pick up the trail all Mr. Tin has to do is ask his flunkies where they would go for fake IDs. Since the cops have to beat such information out of the crook they just apprehended they are going to be at a considerable disadvantage. Lucky for them that Mr. Tin seems to have a perverse unwillingness to pay for the evidence, and instead demands that Aspirin, Panadol, and Strepsil be killed. Seriously, these guys would probably part with the microfilm for a couple thousand, far less than a hit-man would cost. The trio may not be much to look at but when their backs are up against the wall they rise to the occasion. With that, Yes, Madam as established its main characters, its MacGuffin, and its central conflict; leaving plenty of run-time for ludicrous action spectacles. Of particular note in this department is an absurd scene where Panadol evades an assassin in his ludicrously furnished apartment and the final brawl that takes place in Mr. Tin's mansion, which I will describe in greater detail later on.

The relationship between Senior Inspector Ng and Senior Inspector Carrie Morris constitutes the film's biggest missed opportunity. For a buddy cop movie to really work, I have to really get a sense of the two protagonists, how they differ in attitudes/backgrounds/methods and how they ultimately come to understand and respect one another. It's as true here as it was in 48 hours (1982), Lethal Weapon (1987), or Rush Hour (1998). Yes, Madam has a unique advantage, as its two cops are from wildly different cultures and crime-fighting institutions. Scotland Yard is an elite organization handling difficult cases at the behest of Britain's ruling aristocracy. It's a league of gentlemen with intricate social rules that must be obeyed in addition to all the usual legal procedures. Being an elite organization, roughly equivalent to the American FBI, the yard does not generally operate under the pressures of limited resources. The Royal Hong Kong Police on the other hand are the sole law enforcement agency in one of the meanest beats in East Asia. They are tasked with keeping a population of five million cagey hucksters in order while simultaneously dealing with some of the most infamous gangs in the world. Under such circumstances it's only natural that at times corners get cut, rules get bent, and suspects get confessions beaten out of them. It should have been a classic story, with Morris acting as the straight-laced, by-the-books foil to Ng's Dirty Harriet. The problem is aside from superficial differences, the two girls are effectively interchangeable, with both of them playing the loose cannon with nothing left to lose. Annoyingly, more time is spent building the relationship between the three petty criminals Asprin, Panadol, and Strepsil. A compelling side story is great, but seriously, this film needed to focus more on the central relationship, failing to do so negates one of the greatest strengths of the Buddy Cop subgenre. It's a shame because, despite the weak script, both Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock are turning in compelling performances, especially when it comes to the action scenes. I knew Yeoh would be fine after watching The Heroic Trio (1993) and Magnificent Warriors (1987), but I was more surprised by Rothrock. This was the first time I've seen a Gweilo cast in a leading heroic role in a Hong Kong action movie (usually they play the baddies), and Rothrock shows she's more than up to the task.

Before the conclusion, I was all set to write Yes, Madam off as a minor curiosity of Hong Kong film making: a buddy cop film that never quite got off the ground, and was burdened by the sort of ludicrous slapstick that slows down way too many excellent Hong Kong action films. But the last 20 minutes or so did a lot to change my general impression of the film. The setting for the final big brawl is downright inspired in and of itself. Mr. Tin's manor is a massive glass cavern of a house, with tons of balconies and staircases that allow the fight choreography to have an unusual degree of verticality. Wave after wave of mooks gets tossed through glass panes or sent careening from half a floor up. More than one stunt had me wincing in sympathy pains. It's a magnificent scene made all the more entertaining by the fact that one of Mr. Tin's elite lieutenants seems to be cos-playing as Saddam Hussein complete with mustache and military uniform (why Yeun went with such an eccentric costume for only one of the minor baddies and had the rest played mostly straight is beyond me). More than the mere sum of its parts though, the climax of Yes, Madam captures that all to easily overlooked element, without which action movies cannot function: fun.

Then there's the ending, which I'm going to need to discuss in some detail, so consider this your spoiler warning. Just like in Corey Yuen's later She Shoots Straight (1990), the ending comes out of nowhere and hits with alarming speed. Unlike that film though, which ended with the heroine's triumph over the villains who murdered her husband, this one is also shockingly pessimistic. Just as Ng and Morris have finished knocking the piss out of the last of Mr. Tin's henchmen, the crooked cops arrive in force and arrest Ng, Morris, and Strepsil for trespassing and property damage (the bill for shattered glass panes alone is probably in the tens of thousands of dollars). As they are being led away, Strepsil dives on a cop and steals his sidearm, then unloads it into Mr. Tin's back. Mr. Tin writhes in a disturbing death throes and the credits roll. It's an ending straight out of The Hills Have Eyes (1977), that gives us all of the unease of the violence but none of the normal action movie catharsis. There is nothing heroic about shooting an unarmed man in the back, no matter how much he deserved it. Since the film just ends on this troubling note, there's also no resolution to reassure us that any of the characters are going to be alright. It seems an odd choice to slap this disturbing ending onto an otherwise fun action-comedy, but it does have the dubious advantage of being memorable. I can guarantee that I will never forget it anyway.