The Heroic Trio (1993), part 1

Although rachelmanija and I were planning on watching more Romance of the Red Dust at first, we ended up renting The Heroic Trio, a low-budget Hong Kong movie about three female superheroes. Or, er, one female superhero (Tung, aka Wonder Woman), one morally ambiguous super-person (Chat aka Thief Catcher aka Number 7), and one supervillain who has lost her humanity (Ching aka Invisible Girl aka Number 3). Together, they save the world! Or at least protect it from evil archnemesises who attempt to take it over by stealing 19 babies!

When we were standing in line to rent it, Rachel exclaimed, "This is the one with the flying decapitator! Also the flying motorcycle!" The people behind us stared, possibly wondering why that garnered an "Awesome!" from me.

Tung is married to a cop, who demonstrates his cop-ly prowess by leaping from the second floor of the ramshackle house they're about to buy, grabbing a random and convenient vine, and swinging down to avert a car thief. But at night, she goes around to save babies as... Wonder Woman! Unfortunately, the cop's salary probably doesn't go very far, necessitating the construction of a superhero outfit out of tin foil, panty hose, and an extremely ragged and dirty bedsheet. Possibly the movie's costume department hoped that the dirty bedsheet would miraculously become a cape if the audience squinted hard enough, but I feel this would have been more easily accomplished had they not draped it over Anita Mui like a bad rendition of a poncho.

Anyhow, she rescues the babies kidnapped by Ching/Invisible Woman, who is invisible. The invisibility is a good thing, because it means we don't have to see Michelle Yeoh in a bright red bodysuit and a tartan cape/poncho/bedsheet. Or in black panty hose and metal wires going from her crotch to her breasts, complete with yet another bedsheet, this one in silver!

The hospital, by the way, seems to have been set up in an abandoned warehouse, given the decor, and it's entirely staffed by nuns. Well, we thought they were nuns, although they wore giant linen tableclothes over their heads instead of habits.

At this point, Rachel may have said, "Wait, maybe I was wrong about the flying motorcycles," as Invisible Woman's main mode of transportation was running alongside walls dripping blood and Wonder Woman's was bouncing from telephone wire to telephone wire.

But then, in came Maggie Cheung/Chat/Thief Catcher/Number 7 in a horrific eighties hairdo, goggles that I can't even describe and... a flying motorcycle! She's sort of awesome, as her motorcycle carries a sawed-off shotgun and possibly a bazooka. This was, by the way, to help the police out with a hostage situation in a completely random chemical factory. She leaps off her motorcycle and onto an empty oil can, throws an explosive inside, then uses that to fly all the way into the chemical factory! As one does.

( Spoilers ride flying motorcycles! (You know you want to read it) )

More to come! Bed for me now...

Although before I go to bed, I just have to mention that Evil Mastermind's henchman, Number 9, will pick his severed finger off the floor and eat it, completely disregarding the five-second rule. And if you let loose a flock of birds around him, he will proceed to leap about, cram the birds into his mouth, and slobber with feathers plastered over his face. Oh, and Evil Mastermind breathes methane.