Her Fatal Ways III (1992) [Film Review]

Her Fatal Ways 3- A Follow-up with(out) a vengeance

Inspector Shih-Nan is sent on a mission to Hong Kong once more. Can we expect also this time another string of over-the-top situations that will make us laugh so hard till our bellies get swollen? The answer to this question is, obviously, yes!

Release Info

Directed by: Alfred Cheung Starring: Carol Dodo Cheng, Anthony Wong, Alfred Cheung 
Language: Cantonese Original Title: Biao jie, ni hao ye! III zhi da ren jia dao 

Movie Industry: Hong Kong Runtime: 92 min

Plot

In this instalment, our female version of Inspector Closeau is ordered to protect a high-rank chairman from the PRC called Chien during his stay in Hong Kong. At first, the task doesn’t seem so challenging; yet, Shih-Nan (Carol Cheng) along with her nephew Sheng (Alfred Cheung) end up arriving in Taiwan instead of Hong Kong just at the beginning of their journey! But to make matters worse, bad luck for our heroes doesn’t end when they finally get to HK, because the news come about a possible assassin on the loose who is planning to kill the visiting politician. The team, with the aid of a cheerful but extremely emotional Taiwanese police officer called Chiang (Chan Chung-Yung) and a strongly overconfident HK Inspector Lu (Anthony Wong) prepares for the visit. Will Shih-Nan be able to stop the potential threat just in time, or will things get fouled up as usual?

A Blaze of Glory

I’ve got to admit that before watching this entry of “Her Fatal Ways” series I was in a lot of doubt. All in all, the level of humour has to decline somewhere in a string of comedy movies (like in case of Police Academy, for instance), but thankfully this sequel lives up to the standards set by the two previous parts and the makers did not run out of ideas.

Her Fatal Ways III is wild entertainment from the beginning to the end. Shih-Nan is as crazy as ever, still trying to prove that she knows better than others (as in her attempts of “blending in” on the locations secured for the visit or getting involved in an argument with kung-fu stuntmen on a movie set). In addition, still being a faithful follower of Mao Tse-Tung and the principles of communism leads to disastrous consequences when she has to face the Taiwanese officials. Nephew Sheng still struggles to master his ESP abilities, which again triggers off some hilarious action (like hypnotising the wrong people). Also, other characters like Chiang and Lu are downright funny and, on the whole, all of the protagonists constitute an explosive mix.

Drawbacks

Some may probably be put off by the noticeable reinvention of some of the old jokes from the last two films (Shih-Nan’s overlong speeches, Sheng’s dumbness, and sometimes confusing action) but these are still fun to watch and are, in a way, trademarks of the series; especially, karaoke singing, which in this part is without a question the best one in the whole series.

The only major disappointment I had was a rushed ending. It has to be mentioned that there was a better build up to the plot’s finale than in part 2, but the resolution of the climax failed miserably. Not only we were given an extremely quick and slightly unimpressive fight sequence with Shih-Nan, but also the moment when the grandmother of “the assassin” rushed to save the man she hated the most in her life (chairman Chien) made no sense whatsoever. Are we to think that she loved him? A pretty stupid explanation since she devoted herself to train her overweight, handicapped grandson to kill the guy. (Pardon the spoiler but the middle of the movie outwardly presents these characters as the baddies, so there’s no mystery to it at the end).

Recommendations

I recommend this movie both to the people who watched the other two parts and ones new to the series (or even new to HK movies!). The movie does not fail to entertain and I’m sure that even dead-serious viewers will be at least chuckling. All in all, this is a good comedy and a well-made sequel.

Overall score: 7/10