The appearance of Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies and then Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon piqued my interest in the lady's earlier films and when this one came up cheap on DVD, I jumped at the chance to acquire it. I am glad I did. It is not the greatest film I have ever seen, but it is good fun and includes some good fight stuff. Michelle Yeoh looks terrific and does some great fight scenes, and all with a great sense of fun. This is one film not to be taken seriously and the result is a great way of spending 90 minutes. If you like mindless action with a touch of humour, then you could do a lot worse than this film. Check it out.
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ian95913 July 2001
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EYEboy3 February 1999And any fans of hers will want to see this thoroughly entertaining romp. A big-budget picture that doesn't skimp on plot or its sometimes-hilarious script in showcasing Ms. Yeoh's considerable talents (including a great scene with a whip!), THE MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS delivers on all counts. Don't miss!
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Tweekums22 November 2018This film is set during the Japanese occupation of China and follows pilot Fok Ming-ming as she tries to help a leading member of the resistance. Things don't quite go according to plan as she initially mistakes a conman for the agent. Later they are found by the real agent and the three of them start working together to thwart Japanese plans to build a chemical weapons factory in a remote city.
If you want lots of well-choreographed martial arts action combined with plenty of laughs you could do a lot worse than this. The story is fairly easy to follow and effectively introduces the key characters in an entertaining way before the main action gets underway. There are numerous action sequences throughout the film with the sense of danger increasing towards the end. These sequences are all impressive with great martial arts, some shooting and some impressive explosions. The cast is solid; most notably Michelle Yeoh who excels as Ming-ming. She really impresses in her fight scenes but also brings a sense of fun to her role without feeling silly. Richard Ng was a lot of fun as the roguish conman... I couldn't help wondering if his character partly inspired 'The Weird' in the Korean film 'The Good, The Bad, The Weird'! I was a bit surprised that the film is rated '18' here in the UK as there is nothing too extreme shown; I suspect if re-rated it would only be a '15'... and that due to certain language in an early scene. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of action-packed, but not overly intense, martial arts films.
These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles. -
Wizard-826 July 2003The movie certainly delivers enough, whether you are a die hard fan of Hong Kong cinema, or a casual watcher. It has strong production values, amusing comic relief, and of course a great deal of action. Once again, Michelle shows her stuff, and she is spectacular to watch.
Still, even though this is a very entertaining movie, I couldn't help but feel that the movie was spinning its wheels a bit too often. Some scenes do seem to go on further than they should. I also got the impression that the antics would be wilder and over the top (a la DR. WEI IN THE SCRIPTURE WITH NO WORDS) than they ended up. It seemed like it would be more "epic". But that's a minor complaint, and the movie does make up for it with a gargantuan battle at the end! -
gridoon25 January 2007"Magnificent Warriors" finds its leading star, Michelle Yeoh, in top form: her speed and dance-like grace make her fight scenes a pure pleasure to watch (she's also good with a whip....and a rope....and a spear....well, you get the idea). And as a bonus, there is another girl, the beautiful and feisty Cindy Lau, who fights as well! Richard Ng, perhaps better known for his role in the "Lucky Stars" films, provides the comic relief, and he's actually quite funny here. The action offers a good mix of martial arts and large-scale battle scenes, and the story is (after the first 30 minutes) engaging and at times even inspiring. The production is spectacular and the music score appropriately epic. If you want to see an Asian take (plus a female twist this time) on the Indiana Jones formula, this is a much better choice than Jet Li's "Dr. Wai And The Scripture With No Words". (***)
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This movie begins as a comedy about spies and a gambler who has to support them unwillingly, but in the second half it turns into a war drama with a rapidly increasing body-count. It seems to play (no exact date given) after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria 1931. Obviously, as a Chinese production it can not be expected to be neutral on history, therefore is eager to show patriotic Chinese who burn down their home town before it falls into the hands of the enemy. "Dynamite Fighters", aka "Dynamite Heroes" on European DVD, seems a bit chaotic, but the action moves so fast you don't think much about it, and young Michelle Yeoh is tireless kicking everyone who doesn't get out of her way. I loved the opening scene when she is the pilot of an airplane and steals from those who have stolen from others. It's good fun most of the time, but in the end didn't entirely fulfill my expectations.
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gbill-7487715 March 2023Watching fresh-faced Michelle Yeoh at age 24 kicking butt in her martial arts scenes and channeling Indiana Jones early on was a lot of fun. The role required a lot of physicality and she was more than up to the task. Unfortunately, the story is weak and the film is tonally all over the map, veering from lame humor to violent war scenes at the drop of a hat. It's a patriotic film about the defense of China from Japanese invasion which I respected, but it's too scattered and cartoonish, working better in its smaller fight scenes in the first half. Meanwhile, there are extraneous characters like Chin-chin and what seemed like a soundtrack consisting of a single song. Worth seeing for Michelle Yeoh, but messy.
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BandSAboutMovies16 February 2023Fok Ming-ming (Michelle Yeoh, as ever amazing) and Secret Agent 001 (Derek Yee) are Chinese secret agents who learn that the city of Kaa Yi is being turned into a weapons manufacturing site by Japanese occupation forces. Along with a drifter (Richard Woo) and Princess Chin-chin (Cindy Lau Chin-Dai), they must rally the people to defeat the Imperial Japanese Army.
Directed by David Chung and written by Kan-Cheung Tsang, this is part World War II movie and part Indiana Jones. How amazing that Yeoh and Yee share the duties of being adventurers and if anything, Yee feels like he has to keep up with her?
It's also astounding that Yeoh keeps smiling through all this action, including an ending battle that has a cast of hundreds as modern technology meets sharp swords. Between firing a gigantic gun, flying a biplane and numerous hand to hand battles, this is all her film. If you want a movie you can just sit back and enjoy, well, Magnificent Warriors is more than up to the challenge. It feels like a huge video game that you just want more of. -
SLT1 November 1998I found the blend of action and humor in this film to be very entertaining. Michelle Yeoh does some incredible stunts, including imaginative use of rope in one sequence. Richard Ng does some pretty slick moves too. Also the actress who plays Chin-Chin does some impressive fighting. If you like Michelle Yeoh films, or even Jackie Chan films, this really should be right up your alley. Incredible stunts, and very funny dialog, this was a real treat to watch.
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Zombified_6607 October 2006Magnificent Warriors is an enjoyable and entertaining movie with a lot to recommend it, especially the excellent, athletic prescence of the fantastic Michelle Yeoh. Still, it drags and feels a little limp in places. For instance, the two opening fights during the plot setup are explosive, impactful and a lot of fun, but after that nothing really happens action-wise until 20 minutes later.
The film stop-starts all the way through, making it a bit frustrating for an experienced viewer. It's no more stop-starty or inconsistent than US or European action fare like Transporter or Red Siren, but it seems patchy and messy in comparison to other Hong-Kong adrenaline-rides like Full Contact or Yeoh's later Wing Chun. Both movies keep a consistent level of action without sacrificing their story lines.
They also have strong, non-wacky story lines. Magnificent Warriors is a horrific mess in the plot department. Take Indiana Jones, substitute the Japanese for the Nazis and substitute Michelle Yeoh for Harrison Ford and you'd think it'd rock. You'd almost be right, but the director and his writers decided to try and make some political points with it and turn it into a patriotic pro-China movie...as such it gets kind of messy and biased.
Still, it's a Michelle Yeoh film. If you're a fan, which I most certainly am, you won't be disappointed with this. Yeah, OK MW blows its two best fights in the first 20 minutes, but there's a lot of good solid action going on here, and though Yeoh isn't as central as I would have liked to preceedings (given she's the only one here who can act her way out of a paper bag) she has some fantastic set pieces and humorous lines to fight/charm her way through.
If you like Michelle Yeoh, watch this, it's a good film and above all it's fun and she showcases both her fighting talent and her charm in equal measure. If you're indifferent to her and just want an OTT blast, there are much better HK actioners out there, you'd probably fare better with say Eastern Condors or Full Contact, both of which are off their rocker and full of chop-socky and gun-play. -
This movie is oddly enough the essence of Hong Kong cinema, back from the late 1980's. The story is fairly simple, and spiced up with comedy elements, while the main focus of the movie is the martial arts and action sequences.
The story is about a small group of people who has to rescue a guy from the clutches of Japanese invaders.
"Magnificent Warriors" ("Zhong Hua Zhan Shi") has elements of action and martial arts, obviously, and also elements of comedy and drama. There is sort of a light-hearted Indiana Jones touch to the movie as well.
Michelle Yeoh does put on a good performance here, martial arts and action-wise, as the movie is not heavy on dramatic acting performances.
If you enjoy martial arts movies and/or Asian cinema in general, then you should watch "Magnificent Warriors" for the action that it is. -
morrison-dylan-fan28 July 2018When it got announced on ICM that a Hong Kong viewing challenge was to take place,the first thing that came to mind was to catch a non-Hollywood Action movie with Michelle Yeoh. Finding the outline to this title very tempting,I got set to welcome the dynamite fighters.
View on the film:
Lighting the fuse in the era when all the guys were firing with all guns blazing, director David Chung enthusiastic attitude towards doing a different type of Action flick sparkles across the swift run-time.
Lassoing into the 1930's with a war against imperialist Japan, Chung makes the action scenes stand out by putting modern fire power aside for historical weapons, whose weight in gun fights and sword play gives the fights a heaviness, neatly balanced by a rip-roaring Adventure atmosphere of slow-motion Kung-Fu moves and colourful explosions.
Fighting into the small village to save it from the boo-hiss Japanese baddies, the screenplay by Kan-Cheung Tsang perfectly compliments Chung style with the serial like mix of spies, break-neck action set-pieces,goofy comedy spots,and lead hero Ming-Ming given quiet moments that allow her family life to be seen, before Tsang throws them all into the next danger on the adventure.
Charging into battle, the eye-catching Michelle Yeoh gives an extremely charismatic performance as Ming-Ming. Kicking the action with a graceful ease, Yeoh brings a real sense of excitement to Ming-Ming diving into a dangerous adventure, and lighting the fuse of the dynamite fighters. -
Michelle Yeoh kicks lots and lots of butt in a cool aviator jacket in this fun martial arts movie. Presumably its English title comes from the vaguely Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven-esque plot about defending a Mongolian town (although by my count there are fewer than seven main heroes here). Towards the end, it increases in scale to become a full-blown war movie, but I think it's at its best in the smaller-scale fights.
Richard Ng plays a con man who gets caught up in events. He provides the broad comic relief, sometimes successfully (his introductory scene involves him getting into a fight and being cartoonishly kicked around like a football).
The filmmakers recorded one catchy musical fanfare to use in the action sequences, and by gum, they're going to get their money's worth from it if it's the last thing they do! -
Michelle Yeoh might not be a trained martial artist, but with her background as a dancer, lots of meticulous choreography and more than a little help from Hong Kong cinema magic, she is suitably convincing as a kick-ass kung fu cutie. Here, she plays a female Indiana Jones-style character, a daring aviator and mercenary who, with help from a secret agent (Derek Yee) and a wacky con-man/wanderer (Richard Ng), helps the people of a small Northern Chinese town to fight the evil Japanese invaders who want to build a poison gas plant on their land.
As is often the case with '80s Hong Kong actioners, Magnificent Warriors suffers from a touch too much screwball silliness (mostly courtesy of comic relief Ng) and some lightweight flirting between Yeoh and Yee, all of which would be excusable if the action, of which there is plenty, was sufficiently exciting. Unfortunately, the countless explosive set-pieces and fast-moving fight scenes never really set the pulse pounding: there's lots of crash, bang and wallop, but very little that sticks in the mind as jaw-dropping, making it a frustratingly mediocre adventure overall. -
boblipton6 May 2023Michelle Yeoh is a daring adventurer, singlehandedly destroying a village of men who try to cheat her of twenty tael (although she uses a lot of footwork), and flying her yellow biplane around to win aerial combat against a Japanese fighter plane; this is during the Second World War. Her grandfather sends her on a mission to rescue Prince Youda of a city where the Japanese wish to set up a poison gas factory. She mistakes wanderer and con man Richard Ng for the agent she is supposed to meet, but soon settles out that it is actually Tung-Shing Yee. Meanwhile, Chindy Lau is in love with the timid Youda, played by Lowell Lo. When Lo refuses to order the deaths of the three leads, Miss Lau rouses the people of the city to revolt against the Japanese. This results in a big battle in which it looks like a company of mortar men and ninjas attack Fort Zinderneuf from THE LAST REMAKE OF BEAU GESTE.
Miss Yeoh is the star, but clearly the producers thought she was not strong enough to carry the movie by herself, so they got involved in a lot of elaboration which works very nicely. She still loks great running, and her martial arts are very good to watch, but Ng steals the show with his con man character, and the final battle is a lot of fun to watch. There's a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment, still de rigeur in Chinese movies, but with a hint that things can work out in the end. Lots of fun. -
jordondave-2808519 October 2023(1987) Magnificent Warriors (In Chinese with English subtitles) ACTION/ COMEDY / WAR
Michelle Kahn/ Yeoh's third action film as a leading character, this time has her as an arms dealer sometime during WWII, but still fighting for the Chinese cause mixing herself up with another agent, Derek Yee working for China against the imposing Japanese army takeover toward a small rural village. Along the way, she teams up with Richard Ng as comedy relief. The hard hitting martial arts action with minimal wires is the key here which has more action than Michelle's two previous efforts. More action than Kahn's Hollywood movies. -
alex_with_a_P17 September 2022Unfortunately this isn't the Indiana Jones rip-off I was hoping for. The only similarities here are that Michelle Yeoh's weapon of choice is a whip and that it's a period piece, that's it. No fun adventures, no exotic places and no ancient treasures can be found. For that, it's still better to go back to see Jackie Chan's Armour of God films.
But even without all that mumbo jumbo, there's no real story to be found here. The characters are paper thin, even Yeoh wasn't able to bring a personality to her character Ming-Ming. It feels more like a pale rip-off of Tsui Hark's best action-rom-com-dramas like Peking Opera Blues but without the emotional beats and without any real drama. It's a shame because the stunt work is pretty neat in the first half, especially the choreography with the whip is very impressive by Yeoh. Other action scenes like a plane chase and the war showdown goes on for far too long and could have used a better editor.
The biggest problem I have is that it tries to be serious and be some kind of anti-war movie, but 90% of the film feels like glorifying the war with it's unrealistic depiction of action. And then there is so much bad comedy. And lots of contradictions like two female leads who have no real agency and get nothing to do story-wise except kick ass. It also feels weird watching civilians getting slaughtered folowed by a comedic scene soon after, or hearing the same triumphant soundtrack even when the bad guys show up.
I can only recommend this to absolute HK movie diehard's or action junkies. I really wished to see what a more skilled filmmaker like Tsui Hark could have made out of this material. As it stands now it was a bit tedious to watch and the ending left me pretty cold. -
Leofwine_draca20 August 2016Having really enjoyed Michelle Yeoh in her breakthrough film POLICE ASSASSINS, I was eager to watch this adventure film which by all accounts starred the actress in an Indiana Jones-type role. There were no real surprises in this film, which is a somewhat shallow action-adventure with a lot of laughs and a lot of explosions. The film is much-lauded for an early battle in which Yeoh uses her whip to take on various thugs, thus inspiring Jackie Chan in SHANGHAI NOON, and it's highly amusing stuff.
The film is technically proficient, and there's no faulting the slick choreography of the many battles. The budget is a bit less than you'd imagine, and events often seem closed in, as you'd expect in a low budget cheapie. Director David Chung also did the excellent POLICE ASSASSINS but he seems to be slightly lacking in inspiration here; one of the low lights is an early dog fight which seems to go on for an age without anything happening, and when they kept repeating the same bit of supposedly-stirring music over and over AND OVER again, I was ready to tear my hair out. Characterisation is nil; Yeoh is the tough heroine, yes, but we never find out any of her motivations and she seems like a computer game character.
There are some mildly annoying supporting characters in the film, including those played by Cindy Lau and Lo Lowell; they grate from the instant they appear. The only person who comes out of it with any kudos is Richard Ng, in a bumped-up role as the second lead; while he delivers the same type of slapstick buffoonery that we have come to expect from his acting roles, he's given plenty of screen time, including heroics in the battles, and he's as great as ever. It's left to the supporting likes of Hwang Jang Lee, Lo Meng, and Fung Hark-On to really get into their characters of devious Japanese bad guys; these guys – who I consider to be among the "unsung heroes" of '80s Hong Kong cinema - are as great as ever.
The film takes a turn for the great about an hour in, turning into a running fight between the heroes and villagers against the might of the Japanese army. The martial arts bouts are crisply done and with plenty of great stunts, usually involving people getting thrown through scenery. There are some nice battles in burning buildings and things really go crazy for ten minutes or so as director Chung lets his hair down and has some fun. Things close with a nice extended battle scene as the walled village faces the Japanese army. Although it looks fairly cheap – reminding me of similar scenes in the no-budget Filipino film, DUNE WARRIORS – there are lots of shoot-outs, explosions, and various cool stunts/moments of slow motion as the bad guys get their just desserts and the heroes triumph. Hardly a surprise, but a nice rousing climax to finish off the film, ending it on a strong note. -
After going to see "In The Line Of Duty 2" and having been impressed with Michelle Khan - both in terms of fighting and in terms of beauty - I didn't need much urging to go and see "Zhong hua zhan shi" ("Born Fighter"), but I was a bit disappointed.
The fighting scenes were good, for sure, but the movie's comic relief was allowed to take up too much time (of course, this could have been a result of Barbadian censorship; I still remember seeing "Coming to America" and hearing Eddie Murphy's only four-letter word in the only movie being cut out, never find the fact that it also cut out the point of the joke), and ultimately diluted the movie's effect. But things worked out okay for Michelle in the end... -
Jeremy_Urquhart5 February 2024In case anyone was wondering whether a movie can be good purely because it has Michelle Yeoh being cool and beating people up, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
The story is all but an afterthought here. I'd even call some of the non-action scenes in this film boring, and it can be a little hard to work out what's going on among the chaos sometimes. But when Magnificent Warriors is firing on all cylinders and delivering action, it's honestly pretty amazing.
The fight scenes and stunts are everything you could want, and if an action movie has great action at a frequent rate, paired with somewhat middle-of-the-road everything else, I still think it's worthy of being called very good movie. The flaws are easy to overlook when the explosions and hand-to-hand fight scenes are this much fun.