It's either her way, or the high way. note
The Way of the Lady Boxers, also known as Madam the Great or Angel Kickboxers, is a 1993 Girls with Guns action film combined with elements from Buddy-cop films, previously exemplified by Yes, Madam. Directed by Wong Wai-Yip, starring Sibelle Hu and Sharon Yeung, the movie features two elite police officers, respectively from mainland China and Hong Kong, teaming up to solve an arms deal.
Inspector Li Tong (Sharon), investigating the smuggling operations of firearms into Hong Kong after a police raid, uncovers the truth that the gunrunners responsible are from mainland China. The Chinese government responds by sending their representative, Detective Chiang-hung (Sibelle) to assist. While both ladies are reluctant to co-operate, due to Li-Tong being a hothead against the straight-laced Chiang-hung, soon they started working as a team as their investigations inadvertently results in both of them being sent to mainland China to confront the gunrunning gang in their headquarters.
The Way of the Lady Boxers contains examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: The lengthy (10 minutes!) final shootout between Captain Chiu's forces and the arms dealers takes place in one. With Chiang-hung and Li Tong enforcing the sidelines and kicking the asses of everyone that gets in their way.
- Attack Hello: Superintendent Li Tong and Inspector Chiang-hung when they first meet, trying to apprehend the same suspect, and ultimately end up fighting each other before asking questions. Admittedly, they didn't know they are on the same side at that point.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Li Tong and Chiang-hung's first action scene together had them fighting a group of mooks in a building under construction. Naturally after a while they end up battling groups of mooks on the same platform, where they quickly had each other's backs and starts beating down mooks with ease.
- Badass in Distress: Halfway into the film, Li Tong gets captured alive by the arms dealer Big Maddy, brutally tortured and beaten into unconsciousness and needs to be rescued by the Mainland Chinese Police Captain, Chiu.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
- Subverted; Li Tung gets the snot beaten out of her after getting captured alive by Big Maddy and is badly roughed up, and in the subsequent rescue scene she still have some blood on the edge of her mouth from being on the receiving end of a Cold-Blooded Torture sequence, but one more scene later she's all tidied up. Then again she's played by the tomboyish Sharon Yeung...
- Played straight by the more feminine Chiang-hung, she gets beaten up occasionally in fight scenes, but never on her face.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Big Maddy, who opts to finish off himself by shoving a wooden spike into his own stomach.
- Big Damn Heroes: The mainland Chinese Captain, Chiu, spends most of the movie out of the action, until the scene when Li Tong gets captured alive by the vengeful Big Maddy who have beaten her unconscious and is about to kill her, at which point Chiu interrupts his attempt to finish her off and kick Big Maddy's ass.
- Blood from the Mouth: On Li Tong, after she gets a thick piece of wood smashed into her stomach by Big Maddy in a torture scene, which knocks her unconscious. She is still bleeding from the edge of her mouth after getting rescued.
- Boyish Short Hair: Li Tong, in usual Sharon Yeung style.
- Buddy Cop Show: Not unlike Yes, Madam, this time it's between a Hong Kong cop and a mainland Chinese officer teaming up.
- By the Hair: Chiang-hung briefly gets restrained by thugs when one of them grabs her ponytail. She gets beaten down by another thug, but quickly retaliates by shoving an elbow into the thug holding her hair.
- The Cavalry: The Mainland Chinese police, who intercepts the legion of arms dealers just as they are about to get away. They are also the Men of Sherwood of the picture, taking out every single one of the dealers while suffering one casualty.
- Chase Fight: The chase between the foreign arms dealer and Chiang-hung, where both of them took off on motorcycles and lashes out at each other during the pursue. And when both of them end up on foot, Li Tong takes over, and continue the chase by running and fighting simultaneously.
- Eyepatch of Power: On the bandit leader during the opening shootout.
- A Father to His Men: Captain Chiu. When an officer of his gets killed in a shootout taking a bullet meant for him, after the action is over Chiu personally visits the officer's grieving family for his condolences, tells the deceased's son how his father was such a great man, and assures his officer's family that they will be compensated over the officer's death.
- Fish out of Water: For both leading ladies. Chiang-hung, a mainland Chinese cop, ends up completely clueless after being sent to Hong Kong from China before partnering with Li Tong, and later on as both ladies are sent from Hong Kong to China, it's Li Tong's turn to end up confused.
- Guns Akimbo: Superintendent Li Tong gets to use dual pistols during the docks shootout.
- Hanging by the Fingers: Li Tong does this by clinging on the exterior of a construction site's elevator while chasing after Sam Ho the henchman. It's around twenty storeys tall, by the way, and Sam Ho repeatedly tries to smash her fingers as she clings on for dear life.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- The henchman who got kicked backwards by Chiang-hung, and ends up falling onto a long metal rod with a pointed tip.
- Li Tong attempts to dispose of Sam Ho this way, kicking him into a long, metal rod that doesn't even appear to be sharp. Ouch.
- Outrun the Fireball: Li Tong during the docks shootout, where she jumps out of the way of an exploding boat on the pier.
- Pink Means Feminine: How does audiences know Chiang-hung is the feminine counterpart to tomboyish protagonist Li Tong? Her first scene had her wearing an all-pink suit with snow-white pants, with her long hair in a pink scrunchie. In fact she's frequently seen wearing pink shirts or coats in various scenes, but make no mistake - she's still a capable fighter and a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak who can beat up mooks with ease.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Li Tong is the red, Chiang-hung is the blue.
- Revenge Myopia: Big Maddy, the arms dealer, wants Li Tong to die slowly and painfully because she killed his younger brother, another arms dealer, in self-defense during a police raid.
- Room Disservice: The assassin that disguises himself as a waiter to infiltrate Li Tong's room, and then suddenly tried to stab her before she beats him up.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Superintendent Li (Sharon Yeung) is the Tomboy, Chiang-hung (Sibelle Hu) is the girly-girl.
- Unwilling Suspension: Li Tong during the rock quarry fight, when Big Maddy casues her to be caught by her ankles on a set of mechanical clamps before being lifted into the air, and then slowly lowered into a rock crusher for her to be Ground by Gears. Subverted that Big Maddy stops the machine in the last minute, and opt to beat the snot out of Li Tong in a Cold-Blooded Torture scene while she's still suspended upside down, until she is completely unconscious before letting her down.
