This movie is available for purchase at www.sensasian.com

Rating:

7

AKA: Iron Fists

Year of release: 1966

Genre: spy action/drama

Director: Lo Wei

Stars: Lily Ho, Fanny Fan, Lo Wei, Tina Chin Fei, Tang Ching

Not rated; contains II-level violence and brief nudity

VCD Information

Company: Celestial

Format: widescreen

Languages: Mandarin

Subtitles: Chinese/English (electronic on lower black bar)

Extras: trailers

Notes: For a VCD of a movie released almost 40 years ago, this is outstanding.

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Image of original movie poster courtesy of View from the Brooklyn Bridge

Angel with the Iron Fists

Lo Wei is definitely not one of my favorite directors, but I will grant that he can put together a pretty good movie, as evidenced by this 1966 spy thriller. The James Bond films were huge hits all over the world, and (as with other areas), Hong Kong studios soon began cranking out their own versions of everyone's favorite secret agent. Even though Angel with the Iron Fists is totally derivative of Dr. No (down to using the same kind of pop-art title sequence) and hampered by a typically small Shaw Brothers budget (some of the "special" effects are anything but), things are livenened up by a nice dose of retro '60's style and a solid performance by Lily Ho.

In the movie, Lily plays a secret agent named... wait for it... 009. After one of her fellow agents is assassinated, she is sent in to infiltrate the nasty war-mongering group who did the hit. Thankfully, most of the members of this organization (led by the wonderfully catty Tina Chin Fei) run around in tight outfits and knee-high gogo boots. And, oh yeah, there's some big plan to take over the world with some kind of super-drug, but really the plot here is just window dressing for Lily Ho to kick ass and look good while doing so.

Even though Lily isn't totally believeable in the action bits (there are a couple of fights where she is obviously doubled by a man, which frankly look ridiculous) she does have a lot of cool James Bond-esque gadgets to work with, such as a purse that doubles as a pistol -- the perfect accessory for the lady on the go. She is also surprisingly convincing in the non-action scenes. I really liked the way the movie wasn't exploitative. I'm sure that sounds funny coming from a guy who loves Wong Jing's films, but it was nice seeing a female-oriented action flick that didn't actually have to depend on the hero being a woman to be interesting.

You could have swapped Lily Ho for a male actor and gotten the same result here -- maybe a little less appealing to the average red-blooded guy, but it still would have been a solid movie. The bottom line is, if you dig '60's spy pictures, Angel with the Iron Fists comes highly recommended. A lot of today's ADD-riddled audience might find this a bit slow-moving as it clocks in at around two hours, but for fans of the genre, this is a rare treat -- especially since Celestial has done another spot-on job in restoring this nearly forty year old film.

Note: the movie's release year has been listed as 1966 and 1967 -- I am going with the date on the VCD's packaging.