As expected, Jackie Chan is hardly in Jackie Chan’s Crime Force. But it doesn’t matter — the movie succeeds in being entertaining in its own plotless, over-the-top manner without him.
Known in some public-domain circles as Golden Queen’s Commando, it’s a crazy-Asian female version of The Dirty Dozen, minus five protagonists. The opening sequence introduces us to each of the felonious females, including the eyepatch-wearing Black Fox, the tattooed Amazon, the fright-wigged Black Cat, the pickpocketing Quick Silver, the whore Sugar, the pyrotechnic Dynamite and some alcoholic chick whose name I didn’t catch because the titles are poorly framed and cut off.
Upon her arrival in prison during World War II, Black Fox (Brigitte Lin of Chungking Express and Police Story) double-crosses each of the girls so they’ll all end up in the hole together. There she hatches an escape plan, and while it does gets the movie rolling, it denies us the usual women-in-prison clichés to which American renters are so pruriently accustomed (subbing a ballet-like basketball game and Keystone Kops-esque food fight instead).
Once they flee on horseback, Black Fox reveals they’ve been recruited to help her infiltrate an evil warlord’s chemical weapons plant. In a booby-trapped forest, they encounter the usual dangers — nets, spikes, sword-wielding skeletons — and are soon captured, but are allowed to go free when they beat their enemies at their own games — namely archery, blindfolded balloon shooting and noodle-eating.
Following a brief interlude in haunted woods, the girls finally arrive at the cat-stroking warlord’s Enter the Dragon-ish secret cave lair. Said warlord is portrayed for all of about two minutes by Chan. This is the best part, however, because the chicks shoot a lot of minions and do flips. You get all this plus severed limbs, a rat pierced with a chopstick and a fat guy named, well, Fatty. Arguably it’s the silliest thing Chan’s ever done outside of Fantasy Mission Force, yet still a better career move than The Medallion. —Rod Lott