Another in a long line of fighting femme Hong Kong crime thrillers, BEAUTY INVESTIGATOR concerns two undercover female cops who stumble upon a gang war between HK triads and Japanese Yakuza. A contrived plot is enhanced by the presence of three authentic female fighting stars. This 1992
film received its first official US release on home video in 1998.
Two Hong Kong cops, Ellen (Moon Lee) and Grace (Kim Je Kee), are assigned to go undercover at a nightclub to track down a sex killer who has murdered three nightclub hostesses. They pick up information implicating the club owner, Bill Tam (Tsui Zen Aie), in a series of gangland murders performed
by Tanaka (Yukari Oshima), a professional hit woman imported from Japan. Tam has angered both the Hong Kong mob and the Japanese Yakuza by stealing a shipment of arms and killing the Yakuza seller.
The sex killer turns out to be David Chune (Peter Chow), the club manager, who is killed by Tanaka before Ellen can arrest him. The two cops then fail to stop the assassination of a Hong Kong triad boss (Yang Chun) by Tanaka. The girls' commander, Inspector Wong (Melvin Wong) reprimands them and
orders them off the case.
Grace performs surveillance of Tam on her own and is caught and beaten badly. Ellen wants revenge and, learning of a meeting between Bill and the Japanese Yakuza, invades the meeting and tries to kill them all. Her unlikely ally is Tanaka, who is actually an undercover agent. The final fight, at a
sprawling industrial site, includes a battle between Tanaka and Tam's mistress/bodyguard, Lisa (Sophia Crawford). Ellen and Tanaka finally defeat and apprehend Bill Tam.
A haphazardly scripted low-budget HK crime thriller, BEAUTY INVESTIGATOR (aka BEAUTY INSPECTORS) boasts three of the top HK fighting female stars--Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima (billed here as Cynthia Luster), and Sophia Crawford. Lee is quite attractive, particularly in her undercover role as club
hostess. She displays a wider range of emotions here than in most of her films, ranging from comedic squabbling with her partner to dramatic histrionics as she gets drunk, ponders her fate, and protests the violence done to her partner. She's also in superb butt-kicking form as she squares off
against Yukari in two memorable encounters, while Yukari squares off against English fighting star Crawford in a final battle at a spectacular industrial site. While it may not have been the best showcase for these ladies, it still offers plenty of pleasures for the undiscriminating HK fan.
The film never probes the ethical questions raised by Tanaka's actually killing several gangsters in cold blood (including a sick triad boss en route to the hospital) while posing as a hitwoman. The revelation near the end that she's a cop seems like a last-minute script change. (Violence.) leave a comment