Magnificent Warriors takes place in the middle of the Second Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s, Michelle Yeoh stars as Fok Ming Ming, a daring secret agent who is tasked to enter rural Tibet to rendezvous with Agent 001 aka Paulina. Her mission is to retrieve important information on the Japanese forces to aid the Chinese war effort. Along the way, she encounters a local conman, Wong, who begrudgingly joins in the resistance after a case of mistaken identity. Ming Ming, Paulina and Wong team up with a Princess and a City Lord to fight off the invading Japanese army who are hellbent on taking over a town to create their chemical weapons.
Magnificent Warriors reunites Michelle Yeoh with her Royal Warriors director David Chung for more wonderful martial arts action this time taking inspiration from a certain whip-cracking archaeologist to bring globetrotting adventuring to Hong Kong cinema after the hype of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Temple Of Doom. Yeoh slips on the weathered leather jacket this time around and shows she is just as handy with a whip as she is with her fists and feet.
The film is a joy to watch and captures the nostalgia of the 1980s: whether the aforementioned Indiana Jones films, King Solomon’s Mines and Biggles – that’s right mother lovers, I’m referencing Biggles in 2023. Boom, you weren’t expecting that were you?
Through a swelling score, Wing-Leung Chan & Renato Piccioni give their best John Williams impression which sets Magnificent Warriors apart from the usual martial arts adventures adding gravitas and grandeur to the action. Whether it be dogfights in the air as Ming Ming tries to outmanoeuvre a Japanese fighter jet or our heroes fending off the legions of soldiers. The score’s orchestral strings highlight the action in fine form in the manner we have been accustomed to from the films of our childhood.
I was blown away by the cinematography of Yun-Cheng Lo and Ma Chun Wah. Being fairly new to the breadth of Hong Kong cinema and being used to watching – the grittier side of Hong Kong cinema – I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by frankly just how gorgeous this film looks. Helped no doubt by this 2K restoration by Eureka who are knocking it out of the park with their slate of Hong Kong releases.
As the action rolled on it was also great to see Richard Ng – best known as a comedian and teaming up with martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung in the My Lucky Stars series – turn up as Wong to give the movie some very funny scenes. A highlight for me was Wong intercepting a carrier pigeon to only serve it up as his lunch and his chosen mode of transport – a tiny pony. He always manages to steal the show and that’s no easy feat given the star power of Yeoh.
If you’re a fan of Michelle Yeoh, which frankly we are all Team Yeoh at this point and you want to see a fun take on the action adventures we grew up on then you’d be silly to miss this.
Magnificent Warriors is out on a 2K restoration from Eureka Classics
Larry’s Archive: Magnificent Warriors
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