Angel Enforcers (1989) User Reviews

Sharon Yeung in a rare leading role

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 15 May 2008]

Trying to protect a policewoman (Sharon Yeung), an undercover cop shoots a criminal, exposes his identity, and is promptly marked for death by the organization he was working for. The hit-man (Philip Ko) completes the job, but during his escape he is shot dead by another policewoman from Sharon's squad. His partner and friend (Dick Wei) is not too pleased about that, and swears vengeance.

As it often happens in these low-budget Hong Kong action films, the story drags this one down, but the action scenes are worth your while. Sharon Yeung, one of the most underrated female action stars from Hong Kong, gets a rare leading role and is in good physical form. However, her final showdown against the almost indestructible Dick Wei is not as satisfying as it could have been. Oh, and if by any chance you can't get enough of the classic music theme from John Carpenter's "Halloween", don't worry - you can listen to it again here! (**1/2)

Devil Enforcers.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 16 August 2019]

Recently seeing Ringo Lam's City on Fire (1987-also reviewed) for the first time,I've been in the mood to see another Action flick from Hong Kong. Digging into a box of DVDs, I found a unwatched HK movie that I picked up years ago! This led to me following the enforcers.

View on the film:

Despite the see-through white English subtitles making a few bits difficult to pick up, the screenplay by Hank Lai and Yale Leung keeps the Girls With Guns antics loaded, from the cackling robbers building transatlantic links with Vancouver, (a popular destination of those who left Hong Kong in the run-up to the Handover) to cop Yip-Ching coming up with unique ways to take each gang member down. Leaning onto Bollywood in the melodrama background of the main cop, the writers take inspiration from the Heroic Bloodshed of the era, with a terrific, fatalist heroism ending.

Diving into the gang, Pan Pan Yeung (who impressively jumps on top of a car) gives a lively performance as Yip-Ching, thanks to Yeung dishing out the smoothly performed fighting moves with a gleeful relish, welded to downcast emotions when Yip-Ching opens up about her family life. Although the action scenes are far too short, director Godfrey Ho & cinematographer Raymond Chang make them sparkle from the stylish kitsch off the multi-coloured biker outfits worn in the opening, melting into slick smash cuts on Yip-Ching's high-kicks,to the slow-motion squib galore exchanges between the robbers and the enforcing angels.

Funny but good.

[the_saint_107 · 7 May 2002]

This was one of the first Hong Kong films I saw. It's been badly made and was quite laughable in places. but hey that all adds to the charm. It's full of great stunts and great martial arts choreography and at the end of the day it's all entertainment I was entertained. Therefore I thought it was great. (Go get John Woo's Hong kong films, They're amazing)

Hilarious, weird, and fun

[CobraMist · 7/10 · 20 November 2020]

Some female cops are after a gang of violent diamond smugglers. There are a few other subplots such as the introduction of a rival gang, the suing of one of the female cops for destruction of property, and a weird haunted house subplot that I didn't understand. Basically it's more Godfrey Ho, girls with guns nonsense.

Like Ho's better work this features moments of hilarity, bizarreness, and a few moments of genuinely fun choreography. The movie features plenty of amateur fights, bullet-fu shoot outs, torture conducted by male American porn stars, a kung-fu construction crew, mild elder abuse, and hilarious dubbing. While the action does slow down, it is typically replace with something weird or bizarre enough to entertain. The finale is sadly a little lacking compared to many of Ho's other top notch work. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who likes the trashy entries in the girls with guns micro-genre or if you are a Godfrey Ho fan.

Underrated Battling Babes Martial Arts Action!!

[Movie-Misfit · 8/10 · 10 April 2020]

I remember having this on video tape in the mid 90's, when it was released in the UK during the height of the Hong Kong film craze. While I was still a young teen and only getting access to so many great titles due to labels like Made In Hong Kong, Eastern Heroes, and MIA (of which this was on), I still recognised some faces and names on the cover - and regardless, I just wanted every possible Hong Kong film I could get my hands on!

While Angel Enforcers is far from being at the top of any HK film fans list, I thoroughly enjoyed it (wearing out the aforementioned video tape eventually), and think its one of Godfrey Ho's best films. Yes, you read that right! The infamous hack n' paste director does deliver some fully fledged productions, and this fast paced, action thriller is one of them.

Feeding from the success of the popular Angel/Iron Angels series, Angel Enforcers may be more of the same, but what wasn't in the late 80's/early 90's of the Hong Kong film industry? Gilrs with guns, kicking ass was big business, and I loved the most of them that came out of it all. Ho delivers a pretty slick film, and although working off a basic plot-line of cops versus gangsters, it looks great with nice, clean cinematography and a great cast led by kung-fu queen, Sharon Yeung Pan Pan who is just brilliant.

In the bad corner is the fantastic Philip Ko and ultimate HK film bad guy, Dick Wei who are led by femme-fatale Ha Chi Jan (Eastern Condors). A host of other popular faces from that era join the ranks in the shape of Mark Houghton, Dion Lam, Paul Wong, Mike Abbott and Charlie Cho (Police Story 1 & 2) to name but a few!

Philip Ko also provides the films action choreography, mixing a healthy dose of double gun-play with tons of fight action, along with some incredible stunt work that fans expect from this period of Hong Kong action. While its not constant, its no less than what Iron Angels had offered, allowing for plenty of story and drama to move things along which all leads to the brilliantly dark, and explosive final 20 minutes of the girls versus Dick Wei (with a little bit of music from The Exorcist backing them up)...

Good production values, tight direction and decent performances from its main players makes Angel Enforcers an underrated classic of the Battling Babes genre, and of Hong Kong cinema!

Overall: A dark and action-packed thriller, Angel Enforcers is one of Godfrey Ho's finest...

Hard hitting martial action galore

[jordondave-28085 · 8/10 · 17 June 2023]

(1989) Angel Enforcers (In Chinese with English subtitles) ACTION

This version of "Angel Enforcers" does not really have Moon Lee and Carrie Ng as RT indicates but really is in "Angel Termintors II", this one stars four unknown Asian actresses but play kick ass sisters of a retired single officer assigned to a difficult case involving a scrupulous night club owner (another Asian actress I'm not familiar with) until the inevitable happen when one of the main baddies buddy gets killed and then gets bent on revenge on one of the sisters instead of following the advice of the night club owner. Quite a far fetched retribution plot which is nothing more than to showcase some hard hitting fighting.