Satin Steel (1994) Review

“Satin Steel” DVD Cover

Director: Tony Leung Siu-Hung
Cast: Jade Leung Ching, Anita Lee Yuen Wah, Russell Wong, Kenneth Chan Kai Tai, Wong Kwan-Hong, Kong Miu-Deng, Wan Seung-Lam
Running Time: 85 min.

By Paul Bramhall

After debuting as a Hong Kong version of La Femme Nikita in 1991’s Black Cat and its sequel the following year, model turned action actress Jade Leung would next star in 1994’s Satin Steel. Made at a time when the short lived Girls with Guns genre was already beginning to fizzle out, Leung is notable for making an impression on the genre not only because she entered it during its dying days (compared to her contemporaries like Takajo Fujimi, who today is largely forgotten about), but also for lacking a martial arts background. The fact that she’s still fondly remembered is likely down to her model looks, but equally so the fact that she was always game for performing her own stunts, with the hair raising scenarios she was willing to throw herself into making up for her lack of fighting prowess.

It’s this fact that also allowed fans of the genre to turn a blind eye to the low budget of most movies she’d star in after her Black Cat double whammy, with Satin Steel already sporting decidedly lower production values (notably in 1998 she ended up in the Philippines, the home of low budget HK filmmaking, which saw her star alongside fellow Girls with Guns luminary Yukari Oshima in Leopard Hunting). Despite the low budget though, Satin Steel offered the opportunity to work with the legendary Tony Leung Siu-Hung. The younger brother of Bruce Liang, after acting in and choreographing over 40 movies since the early 70’s, Siu-Hung tired his hand at directing in 1984 with the Shaw Brothers production Thunderclap. Perhaps most well-known for his English language Seasonal Films productions like 1995’s Superfights and 1997’s Bloodmoon, Satin Steel was the last action movie he’d direct in Hong Kong before heading stateside.

Pulling both director and action choreographer duties, here he pairs up Leung’s HK cop with a Singapore inspector played by Anita Lee (Tiger Cage II, The King of Robbery) for a pan-Asian adventure that sees the pair after an American mafia boss trading in illegal arms. Leung here is in classic cop on the edge mode, as we meet her apprehending an arms smuggler who threatens to blow them both up with a grenade. Little does he know that Leung holds little regard for her own life, so even pulls the pin, which makes him think twice about making hollow threats and instead makes a dash for it. He ends up caught and tied to a post box, and as Leung walks away she detonates the grenade and throws it into the letter slot, accompanied by a mildly psychotic giggle (which I’m not sure is how it was meant to come across) as he struggles to escape.

For anyone that’s seen Lethal Weapon her character will be immediately familiar, as she’s essentially a female version of Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs. We see in flashback how she and her husband were ambushed on their wedding night, with her husband being shot to death in front of her, and now whenever she happens to pass a wedding by chance she finds herself unconsciously putting a gun to her own head. Needless to say it’s a traumatising experience for any newly weds who have caught her attention. Unlike in most Hong Kong action movies though, Leung doesn’t get reprimanded for her reckless actions or assigned to menial cases, instead being selected to travel to Singapore on the trail of the mafia boss. It’s rare for a Hong Kong movie to be filmed in Singapore, with The Last Blood and 2000 AD being the only other examples that spring to mind, however the location shooting here could pretty much be anywhere.

Siu-Hung can take credit with Satin Steel for pioneering a trope which I’d originally thought had been done first by Stanley Tong in 1996’s First Strike – naming the main character the same as the actor playing them. So yes, here Jade Leung is playing Jade Leung, and it’s not only in the subtitles either. When Leung arrives at Singapore airport, she finds Anita Lee waiting for her holding a big sign that reads “JADE LEUNG”. It’s hilarious, and if this review was being posted on Variety, I may consider making an argument for how Satin Steel daringly uses such techniques to blur the line between reality and film in bold and exciting ways. Thankfully, it’s not. The pairing of Leung and Lee works well, with Leung’s chain smoking devil may care cop played off against Lee’s straight laced inspector, who’s biggest concern is her nagging husband (an irritating performance by Kenneth Chan) and the risk of getting fined for chewing gum. 

Eventually of course the pair bond through a combination of Leung flicking a cockroach into the husband’s mouth, and their mutual beatdown of a suspect who tries to get away. While neither are trained martial artists, under the choreography of Siu-Hung he makes them look good, with Leung in particular looking much more sprightly and convincing than she did in either of the Black Cat entries. The need for the audience to be convinced of their screen fighting abilities is important in Satin Steel, since the narrative introduces the mafia bosses bodyguard as a robotic armed killer capable of ripping off ears and felling fully grown trees (played by Wong Kwan-Hong, who clocked in memorable action performances in the likes of Return of the Bastard Swordsman and The Beheaded 1000).

The pair eventually end up following a lead to Indonesia, where they use their charms to take advantage of horny Arabs (racial stereotyping in a 90’s Hong Kong movie, who’d have thought?), and Leung crosses paths with the conflicted lawyer of the mafia boss, played by Russell Wong (Romeo Must Die, Contact to Kill). It turns out that only Wong’s inherent good is capable of melting Leung’s icy exterior, which results in what surely must be a candidate for the most 90’s sex scene ever committed to film – we’re talking a saxophone soundtrack, a firework display juxtaposition, and lots of shoulder kissing. If you don’t consider that time filler, then we also get that mainstay of any low budget movie that’s made the effort to film somewhere in South East Asia – a cultural show being held in a restaurant! 

The admirable difference in Satin Steel is that the traditionally masked performers, who show off their ability to slash themselves with daggers and crawl over broken glass without being harmed, also turn out to be working for the mafia boss. At least I think they are, as they randomly turn up later to attack Leung in the jungle, that is until she shoots one of them in the face. In fact all of the action sequences are entertaining and often contain some surprisingly dangerous stuntwork, with one particular shot of a character jumping in front of an oncoming train looking almost too close for comfort. The real showstopper though is saved for the finale, which sees Leung in pursuit of the robot armed Kwan-Hong on horseback, before going one on one on top of a volcano. While all of this is happening, we have the mafia boss (who for the life of me I can’t find a credit for) hovering in a helicopter overhead.

Clearly inspired by Police Story 3: Supercop, Leung ends up clinging to the side of the helicopter as it takes flight, in a scene which I have to believe she was doubled for at least some of it, but it’s also blatantly clear that it’s Leung herself hanging on in various jaw dropping shots. For this sequence alone, she earns her place in the Hall of Crazy Hong Kong Stuntwork Fame. At one point the helicopter goes over a river, and flies low enough that Leung is getting dragged through the water while still clinging onto the side, in one of those sequences which you know could only be produced in Hong Kong in the 80’s and 90’s. There’s a priceless shot at the end of the sequence, when she comes to a stop after rolling down the side of the volcano, and you can see the trauma practically written on her face. The scene is everything I love about Hong Kong action cinema, and the personalities that populated it.

With that being said Satin Steel is hardly the movie to switch anyone on to the world of Hong Kong action cinema. It’s low budget and doesn’t break any new ground, however for the rest of us it’s the kind of movie that delivers everything we expect from a Girls with Guns flick – a brisk pace, frequent fisticuffs, and stuntwork that makes you question what they were thinking. Call it nostalgia, but for that alone, it’s hard not to recommend.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10