Jin pai shi jie

Although Moon Lee and Michiko Nishiwaki are the (relatively) more famous names involved in "Princess Madam", it's their underrated co-star Sharon Yeung who really owns this film. She has more screen time than both, and let's face it, she is a more credible tough chick than the sweet and cuddly Moon Lee. Michiko is effective as a villainess, but she is written off the picture halfway through. The film is rather shoddily made, with at least two instances of laughably poor night-to-day continuity. But the script does take a shocking turn near the end (after teasing us about it first), which makes it more interesting than the typical cops vs. gangsters story. Unfortunately, my VHS version is atrociously subtitled, to the point where about half the dialogue is impossible to read, and the only DVD currently out there seems to be one in Chinese with NO subtitles at all. So, there's no way to see this film in a proper form right now for anyone who doesn't speak Chinese. (**)