If Heroic Victim is notable for anything, it's for featuring the tough-as-nails Tu Kuei-Hua (Taiwanese bodybuilder / athlete turned actress) in a rare leading role after a decade of bit parts. It's a pity then that this opportunity is squandered in such a weak, hodge-podge production.
Mainlander, Chiang May-Yin (Tu Kuei-Hua), is fired from her job as a waitress for refusing to apologise to a customer who had groped her. On the way home, she is terrorised by some thugs, raped and left unconscious on the roadside.
Shortly after Chiang has recovered she is approached by a policeman who also runs a local gym. He offers to train her to partake in a boxing tournament he is hosting. The tournament gets under-way and is apparently such a raving success (despite only about 10 people in the crowd) that the local hoods start to muscle in for a slice of the profits. Chiang successfully fends off the thugs and also suspects that their boss is the man that raped her. After a series of confrontations, the leader of the gang, Ah-Chen (Lung Tien-Hsiang), kidnaps Chiang's son. However, Chiang wasn't with another man when she was raped so, guess who's the daddy?
To exploit Tu Kuei-Hua's real-life sporting background, director Wu Chia-Chun must have thought he was onto a winning formula by 'spicing up' the film with some kickboxing and wrestling sequences. Now, I'm all for watching sweaty women in leotards but the plentiful tournament scenes are so flatly directed and unconvincing that they almost unwatchable. The cheap set design doesn't help things either with the gym centre looking like it was filmed in someone's living room. When Ah-Chen's thugs come and trash the gym midway through the film, I breathed a sigh of relief, as I thought this surely meant an end to the wrestling scenes. Unfortunately, I was wrong as the director proceeds to present us (or punish us...) with more of the wrestling scenes -via flashbacks!
Motives and characters are erratic and random. People appear in fights without previous introduction as if they've wandered in from another nearby film set. A good example of the sudden shift in tone is where Chiang, now seemingly the head of a gang (her girls call her 'Big Sis' with no explanation given), scalds one of her girls with a hot iron for taking drugs.
Still, amongst all of the weak melodrama and general ineptitude of it all, there are a handful of reasonably good fights to be found. Tu Kuei-Hua shows off some very nice footwork (including a lovely flying kick which gets a well-deserved freeze-frame) during her brief scrap with Chu Ben-Ke, the distinctive bald guy in so many of these low budget Taiwanese productions. These scenes are worth a look for fans of Tu Kuei-Hua but they really aren't enough to save the film which I cannot recommend.
Note: There is an enticing shot on the Taiwan VHS cover of Tu Kuei-Hua in a head-to-toe leather outfit, brandishing an automatic weapon. There is no such scene in the film.
I have also seen this image used for Revenge In Fury (1988) also featuring Tu Kuei-Hua but no such scene in that film either.
Lastly, Tu Kuei-Hua also played the lead role in Girl Thugs (aka Jiang Hu Liu Lang Nu, 1988) which also featured numerous wrestling matches!
1.5 out of 5
Review source: Sunny Overseas Corporation, VHS (Taiwan) (Mandarin language only)
Mainlander, Chiang May-Yin (Tu Kuei-Hua), is fired from her job as a waitress for refusing to apologise to a customer who had groped her. On the way home, she is terrorised by some thugs, raped and left unconscious on the roadside.
Shortly after Chiang has recovered she is approached by a policeman who also runs a local gym. He offers to train her to partake in a boxing tournament he is hosting. The tournament gets under-way and is apparently such a raving success (despite only about 10 people in the crowd) that the local hoods start to muscle in for a slice of the profits. Chiang successfully fends off the thugs and also suspects that their boss is the man that raped her. After a series of confrontations, the leader of the gang, Ah-Chen (Lung Tien-Hsiang), kidnaps Chiang's son. However, Chiang wasn't with another man when she was raped so, guess who's the daddy?
To exploit Tu Kuei-Hua's real-life sporting background, director Wu Chia-Chun must have thought he was onto a winning formula by 'spicing up' the film with some kickboxing and wrestling sequences. Now, I'm all for watching sweaty women in leotards but the plentiful tournament scenes are so flatly directed and unconvincing that they almost unwatchable. The cheap set design doesn't help things either with the gym centre looking like it was filmed in someone's living room. When Ah-Chen's thugs come and trash the gym midway through the film, I breathed a sigh of relief, as I thought this surely meant an end to the wrestling scenes. Unfortunately, I was wrong as the director proceeds to present us (or punish us...) with more of the wrestling scenes -via flashbacks!
Motives and characters are erratic and random. People appear in fights without previous introduction as if they've wandered in from another nearby film set. A good example of the sudden shift in tone is where Chiang, now seemingly the head of a gang (her girls call her 'Big Sis' with no explanation given), scalds one of her girls with a hot iron for taking drugs.
Still, amongst all of the weak melodrama and general ineptitude of it all, there are a handful of reasonably good fights to be found. Tu Kuei-Hua shows off some very nice footwork (including a lovely flying kick which gets a well-deserved freeze-frame) during her brief scrap with Chu Ben-Ke, the distinctive bald guy in so many of these low budget Taiwanese productions. These scenes are worth a look for fans of Tu Kuei-Hua but they really aren't enough to save the film which I cannot recommend.
Note: There is an enticing shot on the Taiwan VHS cover of Tu Kuei-Hua in a head-to-toe leather outfit, brandishing an automatic weapon. There is no such scene in the film.
I have also seen this image used for Revenge In Fury (1988) also featuring Tu Kuei-Hua but no such scene in that film either.
Lastly, Tu Kuei-Hua also played the lead role in Girl Thugs (aka Jiang Hu Liu Lang Nu, 1988) which also featured numerous wrestling matches!
1.5 out of 5
Review source: Sunny Overseas Corporation, VHS (Taiwan) (Mandarin language only)
