Angel 2 (1988)

Aka Iron Angels 2/Fighting Madam 2

After the Angel team complete their latest mission to save a kidnapped businessman, they go on holiday to Malaysia where they meet Alex’s old college friend Peter who is a successful businessman. Alex doesn’t know that Peter harbours an ambition to overthrow the government and has amassed a small army in the jungle where they are awaiting orders. When he’s not training with his army, Peter enjoys watching footage of his idol Adolf Hitler! One of the Angel team Elaine has fallen big time for Peter and when she stumbles upon his plan she hides underneath his private helicopter to see what’s going on in his jungle hideout. She witnesses a CIA agent Marco being murdered by Peter and unfortunately is discovered in the process before being captured. Alex and Moon call up fellow agent Karina (and her 2 male helpers) to aid them in a frontal assault on Peter’s hideout to rescue Elaine.

This is great sequel to the first Angel movie which was released in 1986 after it proved to be popular and the leading trio of Alex Fong, Moon Lee and Elaine Lui return to reprise their roles. It can’t strictly be classed as a ‘girls with guns’ feature because instead of focusing strictly on Moon and Elaine, this movie is more about Alex Fong’s character and his association with the villain of the story. It opens with a fantastic action packed rescue of a businessman from a group of killers. After dispatching the majority of them, one of the baddies puts a grenade in the mouth of the kidnapped man. Alex shoots the baddie in the head but in falling down dead he pulls the pin out of the grenade. Alex quickly kicks the grenade out of the businessman’s mouth before Moon catches it and throwing it quickly out of a window before it explodes. It’s a fast paced and action packed start to entice viewers to the movie.

The plot slows down in the middle section for the viewer to be introduced to Alex’s friend Peter in Kuala Lumpur and his plans to dominate Asia. There’s a big brawl in a bar to interest action fans as Peter and Alex take on a transvestite gang and a small car chase through the jungle! After Elaine is captured by Peter and his associates, it gears up for the superb finale as Alex, Moon and Karina load up with a variety of weapons (machine guns, grenades, crossbow, blowguns etc) and head off to take on Peter and his army in the jungle. The introduction of Karina is a good one as she’s one bad-ass lady. All manner of explosions go off as everything in Peter’s camp is blown up. Moon Lee gets to do an incredible stunt from a look-out post up a tall tree when it explodes after a small missile is launched from a rocket launcher and she falls from a great height before crashing through the roof of an explosive store. She also has a brief fast and furious fight with one of Peter’s henchmen played by the action choreographer Yuen Tak before the movie finishes with a bloody and brutal fistfight between Alex and Peter near a waterfall. I wished the scenes would have been swapped about as Moon’s scrap is much better than Alex’s one and would have made for a far better ending for the movie. Although Alex is a capable enough fighter, he doesn’t come close to what Moon Lee was able to achieve. The movie makes you wonder how this small army hoped to overthrow the Malaysian government if they couldn’t deal with 6 people as they are completely decimated! I thought the movie suffered a little bit by not having a strong enough villain. The first Angel movie was blessed with having Yukari Oshima and Hwang Jang Lee as the evil bad guys. Ting Wai-Chin is OK as Peter but he’s just not threatening enough. There’s also less intense action but that’s only a minor quibble. The movie is still very entertaining and I enjoyed it.

Overall, Angel 2 is a competent action movie which would have been better had it not been for the middle section (although I’m sure the sight of seeing Moon Lee and Elaine Lui in black bikinis by the swimming pool is a welcome sight for a lot of people!). The first and last third of the movie will be enough though to satisfy most HK action fans. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of Moon Lee.

Sadako’s Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5