Angel of Vengeance
by Sung Pe Liu
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ah-Fat, Alex Fong, Alexander Lou, Kan Chao, Yukari ÔshimaDirector: Sung Pe Liu
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Yen-shan Chen
Writer: Sung Pe Liu
Editor: Bo-Wen Chen
Producer: Ging-shen Liu
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Cantonese (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-08-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Angel of Vengeance
Movie Review: "Young man, do you like going to brothels?"
Summary: 2 Stars
Try and find a movie that comes packaged with its own T-shirt - you won't find too many. Try finding one that's actually good and you'll find even fewer, because "Angel of Vengeance" is definitely not a good movie. Marketing avenues aside, what you have here is a resoundingly average low-budget Hong Kong film that's only notable for starring karate queen Yukari Oshima and indulging in some segments of remarkably poor taste to get its point across.
The story: a young female student writing a thesis on love and passion attempts to sneak into the underworld of sex trafficking with the aid of her aspiring boyfriend, unaware that her mother's brothel houses the kidnapped sister of a freelance assassin (Oshima, Riki-Oh - The Story of Ricky) who will stop at nothing to rescue her...
The former aspect of the story is an exercise in ridiculousness: this student, Betty (I have no idea who plays her) is so hung up on writing this thesis that she dresses up as a man to sneak into the brothel repeatedly, even after inevitably getting caught a couple times and escaping near-rape the same amount. It's a completely absurd thing to see played out and the filmmakers dress it up as comedy, which would've been fine were it not for the film's starkly contrasting agenda of pointing out the harsh realities of human trafficking in scenes immediately following these segments of sexual humor. It's almost admirable how the movie pulls no punches when it comes to detailing the entire breaking-in process of white slavery...but then it loses credibility entirely by indulging in its rape scenes. There are three of these, and while needing to watch one of these in its entirety may have been forgivable on grounds of realism (like in The Accused), the movie makes you sit through no less than three, each lasting about five minutes and barring only the male genitals from view. "Unnecessary" doesn't begin to cover it, and unless you're already a frequenter of the softcore rape market, I can't imagine why anybody would want to watch this while knowing that stuff like this is happening throughout the real world.
Yukari Oshima is the lone bright spot on this pile of junk...at least when the fight scenes kick in. There are about six of these, and while they're not the most creative brawls you've ever seen (save for the one involving a blind female enforcer who fights with a cane), they're serviceable in demonstrating why Oshima is a former karate champion, showcase a couple cool moves, and feature the underrated Alex Fong (One Nite in Mongkok)...but they're only momentary distractions from the painfully bad comedy spots and gaping pitfalls of logic. Production on this film was obviously cheap, but production of the DVD was even cheaper: there are plenty of other characters populating this story, but I can't even find the names of the actors who play them due to the lack of proper credits. The audio/video quality is questionable at best. Personally, I felt that the ending was incredibly unfulfilling...and I could go on and on with a hundred other nitpicks about this movie, but I think you've gotten the picture by now. The only audience I see for this movie are Oshima completists, who should snatch up any film of hers that makes it to DVD, but I can't imagine even them finding much replay value in it.
Summary of Angel of Vengeance
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