The Heroic Trio & Executioners (1993)

[mark187]

Anybody know how much the Media Asia HK box set version of Heroic Trio was cut? Is the Anthony Wong finger eating shot intact? Thanks

[DrNgor]

The Executioners (1993) aka Heroic Trio 2 – For many HK cinephiles, especially those of us who got on the boat during the mid-late 1990s, the first movie exemplified many of the best aspects of Hong Kong fantasy filmmaking. It was a gonzo superhero fantasy where the protagonists were no-nonsense women (something Hollywood couldn’t pull off right until almost a quarter of a decade later), full of imaginative and over-the-top action sequences, bizarre special FX sequences, and just a lot of fun all around. It wasn’t so much a martial arts movie, despite having Michelle Yeoh in the cast, as it was just a crazy comic book movie that just happened to have no comic to reference. I’m sure some of you caught this on TNT around the fall of 1997 like I did, which just helped to cement my love for the genre. That was The Heroic Trio.

 

The Executioners is a different story.

 

Set in the same world, but tonally different from its predecessor, we open with stock footage of a nuclear explosion. We learn that the nuclear holocaust did indeed occur, and the radiation has since tainted China/the city’s water supply. A purification system has been developed by the EEEEVIL Mr. Kim (Anthony Wong), who just keeps driving up prices of water every time people like Thief Catcher (a returning Maggie Cheung) raid one of his trucks so as to sell the water on the black market. The growing civil unrest at the ever-increasing water prices has government regularly sending people into the radiation-scarred wilderness to find clean water, but those expeditions inevitably end in death, which just makes public relations even worse. But that’s what Mr. Kim wants, and he has hired a Christ-like figure, Chong Hon (Takeshi Kaneshiro), to rally up the masses against the government for sending people to needlessly die. The military, led by a corrupt general, hires Inspector Lau (a returning Damian Lau) to assassinate Chong Hon before he can instigate a full-on rebellion. When a second assassin kills Chong Hon at the capitol building on the eve of a negotiations meeting with the president, it all goes to hell.

 

The general places the blame on Lau and murders him in front of his wife and daughter at a train station. His wife, Tung aka Wonder Woman (a returning Anita Mui), is thrown in prison as a rebel at the general’s orders. The general stages a coup and almost kills the president. The Vice President (Eddie Ko Hung) sends Thief Catcher to find water, which she accepts as a way of redeeming herself for bringing the assassin into the capitol and setting all of this in motion. He sends Ching Ching (a returning Michelle Yeoh, although she’s no longer invisible) on a mission to take the President’s double through enemy territory in order to buy time for Thief Catcher. And Mr. Kim is lurking in the background, waiting for the coup to finish so he can install himself as the President, solve the water “problem”, and become the beloved savior of the people.

 

The first movie was a fun action-fantasy film with some poignant and tragic moments amidst the gunplay, martial arts and flying motorcycles. This is a bleak, dark and ultimately depressing post-apocalyptic action film that has but a few moments of off-the-wall action amidst the constant tragedy. Dozens and dozens of innocent people die in this movie, which is never fun, especially when the point is to show just how bleak things are. I mean, Tung gets to see every person she shares a cell with die of poisoning, after which she forces herself to kill a rat and drink its blood in order to not die of starvation. Happy funville, folks! And how about the scene in the police station where the SWAT team members are talking about how they’ve worked for three full days without a break and have to spend Christmas away from their families, only for a woman to enter the hall and blow them all away with an M-16 before she blows her own brains out because her husband died on a water-finding mission? Most important supporting characters, even those who are sympathetic, get killed and even one of the main characters, dies a gory, ignominious death at the hands of Mr. Kim in the end.

 

I suppose I’d be more forgiving of this if the action was good. But Ching Siu-Tung really had his hands full in 1993. That year saw him co-directing this and Heroic Trio; directing and choreographing The East is Red; and doing action directing on Holy Weapon; Butterfly and Sword; Flying Daggers; and Future Cops. I’m guessing it was that fact that led him to focus most of the action around guns, with the lion’s share of the martial arts being saved for the final 30 minutes. And even then, the fights are really short and not as satisfying as they should be. There’s some nice wirework when Wonder Woman finally squares off with the General in balls-to-the-wall swordfight, and the when the Heroic Trio take on Mr. Kim, we get one of those crazy HK fights involving car parts, church pews, chandeliers, grenades, and whatnot. But even that sort of zaniness is offset by the graphic killing of a major character.

 

I bought the Brazilian DVD of this to be able to revisit the old times and support the local DVD industry, but I really don’t feel like making that journey again. Maybe in another 15 years or so.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

On ‎5‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 9:21 AM, DrNgor said:

The Executioners (1993) aka Heroic Trio 2 – ...

 

I bought the Brazilian DVD of this to be able to revisit the old times and support the local DVD industry, but I really don’t feel like making that journey again. Maybe in another 15 years or so.

Stephen Teo considers this among the worst of Johnnie To (and he does go after Ching Siu-Tung as well who as we know did the action scenes and had a hand in the stage work as well -- according to Teo) and this is probably my second least favorite of To's filmography with Lucky Encounter probably being the worst. To be fair to To this is one of the earliest films I have seen of his filmography along with Heroic Trio, years before I got into his work.  I can't remember if John Charles liked this (I think he did), but I know Paul Fonoroff hated this (as I read his scathing review right now; the Charles book is at home.)

[DrNgor]

14 minutes ago, masterofoneinchpunch said:

Stephen Teo considers this among the worst of Johnnie To (and he does go after Ching Siu-Tung as well who as we know did the action scenes and had a hand in the stage work as well -- according to Teo) and this is probably my second least favorite of To's filmography with Lucky Encounter probably being the worst. To be fair to To this is one of the earliest films I have seen of his filmography along with Heroic Trio, years before I got into his work.  I can't remember if John Charles liked this (I think he did), but I know Paul Fonoroff hated this (as I read his scathing review right now; the Charles book is at home.)

There's just so much going against it:

- The tonal clash with the first film;

- The Tai Seng dub could never decide if Michelle Yeoh's character was named Austine or Kara;

- The rampant bleakness and gratuitous brutality;

- The lack of iconic wire-fu action sequences;

- The ignominous, gory death that Michelle Yeoh suffers;

- A nuclear apocalypse that feels strangely localized;

- The lack of anything "fun" about the movie...

[DrNgor]

Can't find a better place to post this, so nyah!

The Month of Michelle continues with a review The Heroic Trio: https://abeautifulfilm.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-heroic-trio-1993.html 

[BornToDefense]

Watched The Heroic Trio for the first time since I was a kid. This movie is one of my earliest HK movie memories: going over to a friend's house as a little kid, us seeing his mom watching this on a VHS tape she borrowed from work, refusing to leave the room because it was the coolest looking thing ever, her fast forwarding through all the gory parts and telling us to look away, which of course we didn't. For years I didn't know what movie it was or if it was something I made up, and even after finding out thanks to the internet I never got around to revisiting it.

Criterion Channel has the ritrovata restoration up this month (wonder why there's been no news on the blu-ray they were supposedly putting out) so I checked it out, and it didn't disappoint as fair as what a trip it was. Really liked Johnnie To's lyrical camerawork and over the top romanticism, Ching Siu-Tung's batshit action and all the performances. Obviously the Trio are great but Anthony Wong was a standout as usual.

I can understand why some don't like Ching Siu-Tung's action from this period as it's so heavily stylized, doubled, undercranked and wirework heavy, but I do have a soft spot for it despite normally going for more grounded old school stuff. Either way I think it was very appropriate for this movie. Seeing all the wuxia weapon staples in a hyper-90s modern setting along with guns and dynamite was great and very clever. Where else do you get to see shotgun vs flying guillotine?

I've seen this referred to as a handover anxiety movie, and while it's not hard to get that from the basic plot, I'm not sure if I got a whole allegory out of it. Or if that's because I'm too dense to catch it, it wasn't there, or I was just too distracted by all the movie going on.

[BornToDefense]

Went into Executioners with low expectations given the reception I remember that movie getting from fans back in the day, and came out pleasantly surprised. It was not nearly as good as the first and very different in tone, but I think I got what it was going for. Can't tell if this means I have no taste.

As much as this movie is kind of an overstuffed mess compared to the first (I think a new set of subs would do wonders for it, the ones on Criterion Channel were super raw) I kinda think that what it's doing is a legitimate outgrowth of what the first movie did. It's heavy on the tragedy and high melodrama (and I mean that in a positive way) from the first movie, it takes the handover subtext (at least as far as I can tell) and basically makes it text. But as many have pointed out, it isn't a fun movie at all, and in between all the tragic and melodramatic bits of Heroic Trio you got a load of fun.

I went into it kind of expecting it to be different based on the Criterion Channel blurb, and expecting it to be bad based on the common reception it gets. And I definitely don't like it as much as the first film. But I honestly don't think it was bad on it's own merit. That said, if you were watching this movie when it came out, or even just pumped up on having seen Heroic Trio and not knowing what to expect, I can see why this would be hugely disappointing. You paid for Anita Mui, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung doing fun cool stuff together and you got this instead.

The old HKMDB reviews tend to be mostly embarrassing IMO (then again I find my own pretty embarrassing 10 minutes after I write them), but there was an observation in one that I thought was kind of spot on: that Executioners feels like a late sequel in a long running series, only the movies between it and the Heroic Trio don't exist. I guess whether that's a bad thing or not is ultimately up to the viewer.

Edited March 10, 2023 by BornToDefense