Yukari Oshi-mom will tear a new hole in anyone who's threatening her child.
A Serious Shock! Yes Madam!, also known as Death Triangle is a 1992 action film starring Cynthia Khan, Yukari Oshima, Moon Lee and Waise Lee. One of many female-led action movies from early 90s Hong Kong, the movie surprisingly takes on a more dramatic turn, being more character-focused than the norm of these kind of movies being action-driven.
Inspector Yang (Cynthia Khan) and Inspector May (Lee) are partners and best buddies in the police force, but both of them had a crush on the same man, Wilson (Lawrence Ng). Despite Wilson eventually settling with Yang and the two of them becoming engaged, May is unwilling to let Wilson go, where she tries convincing him to cheat on Yang, but when Wilson remains loyal, May - driven by envy - decides to go on a self-destructive rampage and turn on her closest friend.
Along the way, there is a sub-plot involving Coco (Oshima), a former car thief-turned-mechanic, who used to be part of a triad and was once arrested by Yang, but have since attempted to turn straight after giving birth to her son. When May's treachery is revealed, Yang had to unexpectedly turn to Coco for assistance.
Despite the title, the movie has nothing to do with the Hong Kong Action Girl classic, Yes, Madam. It was supposed to be a sequel of sorts, but the idea was scrapped in the last minute - nevertheless, for some baffling reason the studios decide to keep its name as it is.
A Serious Shock! Yes Madam! contains the following tropes
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Coco looks really young and well-maintained for a single mother (who doesn’t even have a stable job) of a child at elementary-school age.
- Badass Biker: Coco’s preferred mode of transportation is her motorcycle, which she is seen riding a few times.
- Blatant Lies: A sobbing May telling her police Sergeant that Yang murdered Wilson due to a family quarrel which May attempts to stop unsuccessfully… when the truth is, May had Yang handcuffed to a staircase banister, and then brutally beats Wilson to death before shooting him with Yang’s pistol, then knocking Yang unconscious while wiping her fingerprints off the weapon.
- Blood from the Mouth:
- May, after Coco presses a button on a remote which moves an overhead platform, causing her to slip and fall a hundred meters face-down. But somehow, that’s not enough to kill her.
- Yang coughed up some blood after getting ambushed by the Not Quite Dead May. Her last words are asking for Coco’s son to call her "mom" one last time, although whether she survives the movie or not is an Ambiguous Ending.
- Bulletproof Vest: In the final shootout, Yang manage to get the drop on May and shoot her several times in her chest and torso knocking her down, but May had a vest on her, and she quickly gets back up.
- By the Hair: As seen on the poster above, during the final fight scene Yang briefly managed to subdue May by grabbing her hair and slamming her downwards, before pulling May across the floor by the hair.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Halfway through the film, the audience catches a glimpse of Coco’s past, which involves her, while pregnant, stabbing her cheating husband and his Manipulative Bitch of a mistress to death. She ends up being haunted by the memory of what she did in the past while having a Screaming Birth.
- Deadly Sparring: During a training match, Yang gets her hips broken by May, who is secretly trying to screw her over.
- Designated Girl Fight: Well, with a cast consisting of three of Hong Kong’s top action babes (Moon Lee as May, Cynthia Khan as Yang, Yukari Oshima as Coco), that’s expected. There is Yang vs. May, Coco vs. Yang, and Coco and Yang vs. May in the climax.
- Dragon Lady: May’s attire in the final action scene invokes this, what with her clad in a red outfit and a black, sleeveless coat with dragon markings emblazoned on it.
- Hate Sink: Moon Lee has finally portrayed the most loathsome, despicable character in her career yet, with May the jealous False Friend to Yang and a Stalker with a Crush, trying to repeatedly screw over the wedding life between Yang and Wilson, despite Yang being kind enough to have May as her bridesmaid during her wedding. Hiding her jealousy towards her friend, May pretends to be smiling and cheerful in Yang’s presence, but is actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing plotting on how to screw Yang over the worst ways possible. She uses a sparring exercise as an excuse to cripple her alleged best friend, and repeatedly beats Yang in front of two dozen police trainees to humiliate her. On the false pretense of making up for her misbehavior in training, May decides to have a friendly visit to Yang and Wilson during dinner, only to ambush the couple and murder Wilson after subduing Yang, and subsequently frame Yang for Wilson’s death. When Yang finds a new friend in Coco, which May discovers later, she deliberately kidnaps Coco’s son and threatens to blow up the child to force Yang out of hiding.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: May approaches the slope when she allows her jealousy of the happy marriage between Yang and Wilson to get the better of her, and she took the plunge by killing Wilson and framing Yang for the crime.
- Karmic Death: May kidnaps Coco’s son and attempts to have the boy killed to intimidate Yang and Coco. She eventually gets shot dead when, in an attempt to kill Coco, May fails to notice that the boy had picked up a nearby pistol and fired a shot from point-blank, hitting May in the throat and finishing her off for good.
- Law of Inverse Recoil: Coco's son gets knocked off his feet when he picks up a discarded pistol and shoots May, who's trying to kill his mother. Justified though, since he's just a child.
- Love Makes You Evil: May’s eventual turn into becoming a murderous psychopath is sparked off by being unable to let go of her past feelings for Wilson.
- Love Triangle: Between Yang, May and Wilson. Despite the fact that Yang is Wilson’s fiancé, May still desperately clings on to Wilson until… lets just say the trope Murder the Hypotenuse is there for a reason, shall we?
- Mama Bear: Coco, who goes through hell and back to save her child. May learns her lesson of trying to kidnap Coco’s boy, the hard way when Coco kicks May off a tall platform and later activates a remote that triggers an overhead realing May is on, causing May to fall for over a hundred meters on her face.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: May, during a casual visit to Wilson and Yang’s home and realizing she couldn’t have Wilson to herself, immediately grabs Wilson and beats him repeatedly like a punching bag, holding him to a wall and physically assaulting him, until Yang had to force her to stop by pointing a gun on May.
- Parents as People: Coco may be depicted as a con artist, gangster, tough Wrench Wench and professional fighter, but behind all that, she’s still a mother who desperately does all she can to provide the best for her son.
- Psycho Ex: May could not handle rejection from Wilson properly, and her tendency of being a Green-Eyed Monster causes her to stalk Wilson and Yang, dump a whole bucket of red paint on the bed in Wilson and May’s bedroom to intimidate them, proceed to make Yang’s life difficult while still posing as Yang’s friend, and ultimately murder Wilson, frame Yang for the murder, and try to do the same to Yang.
- Race Against the Clock: The final battle, where Yang and Coco had to take on May while trying to locate Coco’s missing son, who had a Time Bomb strapped on him which is ticking away. Naturally they split up when they had the chance, Yang fighting May one-on-one while Coco frantically searches through various boxes and containers while calling her son’s name. She managed to find him with the bomb poised to blow in 2 minutes, and when she finally cuts the wire the timer is at exactly ONE second left.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: In the final shootout, May, who had turned completely psycho and is now evil enough to kidnap and attempt to murder a child at this point, wears a red outfit with a black sleeveless jacket.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: The final confrontation where Coco and Yang teams up to take on May, who had abducted Coco’s son and is using the boy to force both her targets out of hiding so that she can have them both killed.
- Screaming Birth: Coco, when giving birth to her child all by herself under a boat in the docks.
- Struggling Single Mother: Coco, after the Time Skip post-second act of the film when she becomes a mother to her son.
- Taking You with Me: May, at the end of the movie, turns out to be Not Quite Dead, and uses the last ounce of her strength to suddenly ambush Coco and Yang just as they were about to leave. She managed to stab Yang In the Back and give Coco an Agonizing Stomach Wound, but before she can do worse Coco’s son picks up Yang’s dropped pistol and shoots May in the face.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Coco, who is skillful with tools and a Wrench Wench, and spends most of the movie in overalls or slacks, but also likes wearing lipsticks and leaving her hair long. It's worth noting that she starts becoming more feminine when she becomes a mother.
- Training "Accident": May "accidentally" breaking Yang’s hips and stomping her rib cage during as training exercise, which she deliberately executes a sharp, brutal stomp on purpose to antagonize Yang for "stealing" Wilson from her.
- Wire Dilemma: Averted, when Coco attempts to cut the wires on a Time Bomb which is strapped onto her son. Yang, who is busy fighting May, shouts for Coco to "try the yellow one". It works.
- World of Action Girls: May, Yang and Coco can all kick copious amounts of ass, but as the film progresses and May reveals her sinister true self, she starts becoming a Dark Action Girl instead.
- Would Hurt a Child: May would strap a Time Bomb on a child just to get back at Yang and Coco…
