Combat At Heaven Gate is a 1993 action film starring Sibelle Hu, heavily inspired by the Indiana Jones movies.
Sibelle Hu plays Jean Fong, a student in 1940s China who is an Adventurer Archaeologist in training, and one of two proteges of her explorer father, Professor Chen, the other being her half-Japanese friend and partner Kawatomo. When an ancient scroll of great power from the Three Kingdoms era surfaces in the rural Chinese mountains, the Yakuza wants to get it, and it's up to Jean and Kawatomo to stay ahead of them, but for Kawatomo in particular, an old, long-forgotten enemy of her past is coming back to haunt her.
This film provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Jean Fong and Kawatomo, the badass duo of the film.
- Badass Family: Jean and her father, Professor Chen, a father-daughter team of Adventurer Archaeologist and elite fighters.
- Beard of Evil: On Kanko, the Big Bad.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: In a film with three leading female characters, in respective order: demure and sweet feminine Lin-lin, intellectual star student and genius Jean, and ass-kicking badass who is an expert with firearms Kawatomo.
- Barehanded Blade Block: Kanko somehow managed to block Takaji's massive halberd with his bare hands, and then snap its blades. Before using it to stab Takaji through his chest using his own blade.
- Boyish Short Hair: Jean, being played by Sibelle Hu, as usual, but this time she's not the only one, with Kawatomo sporting a similar fashion.
- But Not Too Foreign: Kawatomo, the other half of the Action Girl duo, is only half-Japanese. Professor Chen actually reminds her not to forget her Chinese heritage from her mother's side after their mission.
- Combat Pragmatist: When Kawatomo and Kanko finally faces each other one-on-one, Kanko braces himself for a big fight, making a bunch of flashy martial arts moves and prepares to intercept Kawatomo's attacks. Kawatomo whips out a small pistol and shoots Kanko in the kneecap instead.
- Cool Big Sis: Lin-lin, after spending quite some time with token little kid Paul, ends up becoming quite fond of him. The feeling is pretty mutual, with Paul quickly following Lin-lin wherever she goes.
- Daddy's Girl: Jean, in spite of being a fighter and all-round badass, still clings rather closely to her father, a single parent.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scene is set in the Three Warring Kingdoms era, and depicts the origin of the scrolls and how they end up entombed in the ancient shrine.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Lan, who is too preoccupied in watching Lin-lin showering herself while in a very tight and revealing one-piece, complete with a bit of Show Some Leg. To the point that he's still gazing her before getting knocked out by a Tap on the Head.
- Epic Flail: Jean and Kawatomo both can use rope darts as weapons with lethal accuracy, or simply use it to retrieve objects (such as two glass orbs in the middle of a booby-trapped room) from a distance.
- In the final scene, while being cornered by mooks, Kawatomo shows that she Knows the Ropes by using her flail to grab two heavy-machine guns held by two mooks, pulling those weapons close to her which allows her to start shooting back.
- Hidden Elf Village: Partway through the film, Jean, Kawatomo and their gang had to stop over in an isolated, Japanese-populated village in the Chinese mountains, which is stuck in the Sengoku-era whose denizens are completely unaware the world beyond the mountains have moved on.
- In a Single Bound: Jean and Kawatomo can both scale long distances and great heights simply by jumping, evidently in their first scene when they climb up a pagoda to retrieve a pair of sacred orbs on its top level.
- It's Personal: Kawatomo's vendetta towards Kanko becomes one-on-one after Kanko killed her mentor and brother-figure, Takaji.
- Ms. Fanservice: Lin-lin, being the token Girly Girl in a film whose main characters are all ass-kicking action babes, she spends most of her time in tight-fitting jeans, wearing her long hair loose... and then there's THAT Shower Scene.
- Offhand Backhand: How Kawatomo takes down Kanko in the aftermath of their one-on-one battle. Using a Mauser.
- Rule of Sexy: There isn't really a reason why Lin-lin needs her own Walking Swimsuit Scene-slash-Shower Scene, where she gets herself completely wet while wearing a tight figure-hugging one-piece (and clearly wearing nothing underneath) just to distract Mr. Lan. Other than because it's sexy, and action films need a bit of Fanservice every now and then?
- Shout-Out: To the entire Indiana Jones trilogy.
- The scene where the keys to the vault gets chucked into a burning fire, before being stuck into a henchman's forehead, leaving a mark behind, is a rather obvious reference to the medallion being burned in to Toht's palm in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- And then there's Kawatomo and Kanko about to fight each other to the death, but Kawatomo instead opts to shoot Kanko on the spot. Just like what Indy did to the swordsman who challenged him.
- The cavern where the ancient scroll is located should be familiar to anyone who has watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The chamber where the scroll is kept can only be accessed by an invisible bridge, and upon reaching it the scroll turns out to be guarded by a few thousand-year-old guardians from dynasties ago, made immortal by the scroll's powers until someone retrieves it. And the real scroll is hidden in more than 50 dummy scrolls.
- After escaping the collapsing scroll chamber, Jean and her team ends up tethering on the edge of a cliff while the chamber collapses on the other side, not unlike the same predicament Indy, Wille and Short Round ends up in the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- The scene where the keys to the vault gets chucked into a burning fire, before being stuck into a henchman's forehead, leaving a mark behind, is a rather obvious reference to the medallion being burned in to Toht's palm in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Kawatomo in the penultimate shootout, where she hijacks a heavy-machine gun almost as big as her and uses it to take names and wipe out a small platoon of Kanko's mooks.
- The Team Normal: Lin-lin, Jean's college friend who inexplicably gets dragged into the adventure, a non-combatant and regular girl who spends most of the adventure babysitting Paul (see below).
- Tagalong Kid: Paul, the son of Mr. Lan, who ends up tagging along in the adventure for the scrolls.
