Although less of an audience-pleaser than its colorful predecessor, this darker, more ambitious sequel to the superheroine saga THE HEROIC TRIO (1992) has a better grasp of its characters, and a grim, futuristic atmosphere that justifies the principal characters' superpowers. Besides
supplying wonderfully sympathetic and noble roles for its three leads, the film's scenario also provides a fascinating reflection of Hong Kong's anxiety over the country's 1997 reunification with mainland China.
In a postnuclear future, radiation has contaminated the water supply. An evil genius, Mr. Kim (Anthony Wong), has developed a purification system that supplies the public, at exorbitant prices, with clean water. Kim covertly influences government activities with the aid of a high-ranking colonel,
while also manipulating public opinion with a handpicked spiritual leader named Chong Hong, who is beginning to take his role as a savior quite seriously. In the meantime, the superheroines from the first film, Tung (Anita Mui), Ching (Maggie Cheung), and Chat (Michelle Yeoh), each pursuing
separate destinies, enjoy a brief, happy Christmas Eve reunion. After a public appearance by Chong Hong ends in a riot, Tung's police commissioner husband, Lau, receives orders from the colonel to assassinate Hong. His efforts fail, but Hong is later killed by a gunman during a peace conference
with the president. The colonel blames Lau for the murder, and Lau is eventually gunned down while trying to flee on the last train scheduled to leave the country. As she tries to rendezvous with him, Tung is arrested and imprisoned for being a rioter.
A military coup d'etat puts the colonel in power. Ching leads rebel forces who hide the president as they prepare to do battle, while Chat, a government agent named Tak, and Tung's small daughter Cindy, set out to discover the clean headwaters blocked from the populace by the colonel and Kim.
Despite her vow to forsake her superpowers, Tung breaks out of prison, resumes her role as a masked avenger, and kills the colonel. She rejoins Ching and Chat for their showdown with Kim, which takes place in an empty church. Ching kills herself while exploding a bomb meant to stop Kim, and the
bloody battle ends when Chat blows Kim to pieces with a grenade. Having ensured that clean water will reach the public and the President will resume his post, Chat and Tung walk into the distance with the precocious Cindy.
Unlike most standard action-movie sequels, EXECUTIONERS doesn't merely rehash its predecessor's plotline. Instead, it resurrects the central characters and places them in a more desperate setting, offering challenges that hinge more on politics than the supernatural. Most likely for budgetary as
much as artistic reasons, directors Johnny To and Ching Siu-Tung, and scripter Susanne Chan, take a low-key approach toward the science-fiction aspects of the story, setting most of the action indoors. This stresses the dogged determination of the heroines and avoids cliched high-tech futuristic
trappings. Certain absurd elements do pop up--like Ching's menacing hunchbacked sidekick--but the film's somber, somewhat fatalistic mood (summed up decisively in Ching's heroic but seemingly pointless death) effectively sweeps them to the sidelines. As in the first film, Wong overacts to his
heart's content as the scarred, superstrong Kim (no relation to the character he played in HEROIC). The lead actresses get ample opportunity to present the human, emotional sides of their comic-book roles, with Mui once again receiving the lion's share of the melodrama as a loyal wife and mother
forced back into crime-fighting. (Violence.) leave a comment
