Even if I wake up, the bloodshed isn't going to stop...
Dreaming the Reality is a 1991 Hong Kong Girls with Guns action film, starring Moon Lee (Iron Angels), Yukari Oshima (Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky) and Sibelle Hu. An unusually deep crime thriller, the movie touches on topics like amnesia, moralities, code of honor among assassins and criminals, and of course, action starring ass-kicking girls of action cinema.
Silver Fox (Moon Lee) and Kat (Yukari Oshima) are sisters raised in a triad by their adoptive father Master Fuk (Eddie Ko, Heroes Shed No Tears); since they are children, they are trained to be killers and raised to be murder-machines. However, the girls' first assassination goes horribly wrong when an explosive trap meant for their targets ends up destroying a bus full of children, at which point Fox develops a conscience. Kat on the other hand takes delight in killing, and when Fox accidentally lose her memory after a botched hit, and she is found by ex-cop, Sister Lan (Sibelle Hu) and her brother Rocky (Ben Lam), Fox begins to question who she really is while Kat tries to hunt her down for betraying their union of assassins.
The plot starts off in a rather complicated way, but as the film approaches its final act, the action starts piling up with its explosive-laden finale. So, so, so much explosions.
Dreaming the Reality contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: The Action Prologue have Kat and Fox setting up a Booby Trap for assassinating their target, by taking out a car full of triad bodyguards and shooting up the second car with their subsequent ambush. Unfortunately, a school bus full of children suddenly turns up from an adjacent junction and activates their explosive trap. Whoops.
- Action Girl: This is a Girl-with-guns film, after all. We have assassins Fox and Kat, and ex-cop Sister Lan.
- Batman in My Basement: Sister Yan and Rocky had to let Fox, an assassin and killing machine who had amnesia, stay in their home while Fox tries to regain her memory. Including hiding her from the police whom are hunting the assassins responsible for the airport shootout and preventing Kat from finding them or risk getting killed by Kat.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted, Kat, Fox and Sister Lan gets roughed up several times in the direct, hand-to-hand action scenes. Calling Sibelle Hu’s Sister Lan beauty is a bit of a stretch though, but she does get beaten up rather badly when she tries taking on another kickboxer and can be seen with bruises on her face afterwards.
- Bittersweet Ending: Master Fuk’s syndicate has been overthrown, the deaths of Kat and Rocky is avenged, but Fox and Sister Lan ends up being arrested for the murders they’ve committed in the ending shootout. Cue credits, the movie just ends at that point.
- Booby Trap: Fox’s specialty, which allows her to install explosive traps in various corners. While her first trap in the Action Prologue Gone Horribly Wrong, later in the finale her traps (with Sister Lan’s assistance) have improved considerably and takes out mooks by the dozens.
- Bring Me My Brown Pants: A drug trade gone wrong halfway have a thug intimidating the dealer by firing a pistol near where his crotch is. Cue waterfall of piss.
- Bus Full of Innocents: That screws up the opening assasination.
- Ceiling Cling: Kat, getting the drop on some rival drug dealers by sneaking upon them while hanging from the ceiling.
- Censored Child Death: Subverted, when the school bus in the opening goes up in flames we didn't see the children getting graphically killed, but later as Fox approaches the scene of carnage, she looks inside and the camera shows us the pile of dead children.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In the airport scene depicting Kat and Fox arriving in Thailand from Hong Kong, both ladies are in Badass Longcoat and Cool Shades, but Kat’s longcoat is entirely black, while Fox’s is completely white. It subtly foreshadows Fox still having some goodness in her, which facilitates her eventual Heel–Face Turn, while Kat on the other hand remains a cold-blooded assassin and ends up dying a villain.
- Destination Defenestration: As expected from these kinds of films. Extras gets kicked and punched through windows and glass panels in several fight scenes.
- Due to the Dead: Before the climax, there is a funeral scene dedicated to Kat and Rocky, attended by Fox and Sister Lan, complete with crosses erect on their graves. His grave is marked by his boxing gloves, while hers is marked by the pendant she always wears.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Rocky’s last words to Fox, while succumbing from a gunshot injury, is to confess his true feelings to Fox. He dies soon after.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Master Fok, the triad leader and adoptive father of Kat and Fox, is frequently seen smoking a large stogie. Meanwhile, Sister Lan, the ex-cop who took Fox in and help her regain her humanity, is also a smoker, although she uses more conventional Malboros.
- Groin Attack: In her first scene, Sister Lan is shown arm-wrestling a bigger and stronger opponent in a bar, where the surrounding crowd is betting against her. Being a Combat Pragmatist, Sister Lan instead decides to kick her opponent's nuts from below the table and win the match.
- Fox briefly did this to Kat, in the inevitable scene where they are forced to fight each other.
- Handcuffed Briefcase: Kat and Fox in the airport assassination scene had to recover a valuable Briefcase Full of Money which is handcuffed to their target. After the assassination, Kat removes the target’s arm from the wrist (by shooting it, which somehow unlocks the cuffs) and Fox retrieves it, handcuffing the case to herself while fleeing the authorities on motorcycles.
- Identity Amnesia: Fox, after the airport assassination goes awry and she gets flung into a river, hitting her head and forgetting she is an assassin in the process. She regains her memory just in time for the final shootout.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: In the final shootout, Sister Lan and Fox have killed off every one of Master Fuk’s henchmen, including The Dragon, and have wounded Master Fuk. Fuk prepares to Face Death with Dignity, but Fox simply tells him he’s Not Worth Killing and convince Sister Lan to spare him instead, just in time as the police arrive to arrest him for his crimes.
- It's Personal with the Dragon: Well, for Fox, it certainly is, because The Dragon is responsible for Rocky’s death. Subverted that in the end, its Sister Lan who ultimately kills him, not Fox.
- Leap and Fire: Fox does this frequently, especially after regaining her memory and leaping out to gun down some mooks threatening Sister Lan. It was at this point Lan realizing she’s harboring a killing machine in her house.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The opening scene depicts Fox and Kat, as little girls, shooting glass bottles while being tutored by Master Fuk. And Age Cut later segues them into young women in a Shooting Gallery prepping for their first assassination mission.
- Motor Mouth: Sister Lan, when attempting to question Fox (who just regained consciousness but still amnesiac after falling into a river) on her identity.Sister Lan: "Let’s not beat around the bush here. What’s your name? How old are you? What are you? How did you get wounded? Why are the police after you? Say it!"
- My God, What Have I Done?: Fox’s reaction in the opening scene, realizing her trap had accidentally killed off a bus full of children. But Kat on the other hand doesn’t even flinch and continues her killing spree as usual.
- Nice Guy: Rocky, a pretty chill guy who insists for Sister Lan to allow the amnesiac Fox to stay at their place and acts friendly with her while she’s trying to regain her memory. Too bad this is where the trope No Good Deed Goes Unpunished kicks in…
- Nothing Left to Do but Die: Invoked before the final shootout. After Kat and Rocky’s deaths, Fox and Sister Lan contemplates on what else they should do next. Sister Lan reveals that her family is entirely dead, and Rocky, much like Kat to Fox, is her only living relative, so with nothing else left to lose they ultimately decide to confront Master Fuk for their final Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- One-Hit Polykill: Happens constantly in the final shootout. Sister Lan and Fox can kill up to three mooks at a time, despite firing only one shot.
- Parental Substitute: Sister Lan to her brother Rocky, a kickboxer, whom she is a caretaker, agent and representative for.
- Pineapple Surprise: Sister Lan, after being intimidated by a group of thugs which she is sorely outnumbered, suddenly reveals she had a grenade whose pin is removed, and is threatening to throw if they do not back off. It works.
- She did it again in the finale, during her personal confrontation with The Dragon, where she avenged Rocky’s death by shoving a grenade into her opponent’s coat without the pin. Cue Ludicrous Gibs.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kat being the red, Fox being blue, as part of their Sibling Yin-Yang. (Not blood siblings, but still...)
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What sets off the climax for Fox and Sister Lan to attack Master Fuk and his mooks directly, to avenge the deaths of those closest to them. Fox for her sister Kat, and Sister Lan for her brother Rocky.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sister Lan tries to go on a boxing rink fight on behalf of Rocky to convince him to get his boxing contract cancelled for his own good, only to find out Rocky’s opponent is a hulking, plus-sized foreigner with loads and loads of Kevlard. After a minute of fighting she promptly jumps out of the ring, but the opponent fighter chases her through the crowd while shouting for her to get back.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Sister Lan's preferred weapon in the climax, which she used to mow down lots of baddies.
- Shooting Gallery: Happens in the opening scene where Kat and Fox, now adults, are practicing their shooting on targets before carrying their first hit.
- Staircase Tumble: Happens during the airport hit, when Fox assassinates two bodyguards on top of an escalator where both of them ends up rolling down all the way.
- Fox herself suffers this fate after revealing that she no longer desires to be an assassin, when she gets shot non-fatally and tumbles down a long flight of stairs of a temple.
- Stuff Blowing Up: In the climax, with Sister Lan and Fox taking out their entire cache of grenades and landmines and putting them to good use.
- These Hands Have Killed: Fox, after expertly killing several mooks and regaining her memory, suddenly questions what had she become as a murderer, while confessing to Rocky and Sister Lan who she really is.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yukari Oshima’s Kat is the tomboy; Moon Lee’s Fox is the feminine girl. They both kick tons of ass though.
- We Used to Be Friends: Inevitably, the Designated Girl Fight of the movie turns out to be between Kat and Fox, the former trying to kill the latter, whom had just recovered from her amnesia, for defecting from the assassination syndicate.
- Would Hit a Girl: Sister Lan’s hulking opponent in the boxing ring. He even swears as her ("Bitch!") while delivering a Megaton Punch at her face, but she gets back soon enough. And wins.
- Basically most of the mooks, but notably The Dragon.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Goodbye, Kat. What’s even worse is that its Master Fuk, her own adoptive father, who ordered for her demise!
