| Dreaming the Reality (1991) |
|---|
| Director: | Tony Liu |
| Writers: | Lee Ho Kwan and Tony Liu |
| Starring: | Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Sibelle Hu, Ben Lam, and Eddie Ko. |
 |
The Plot: Fox (Eddie Ko) is a businessman who has concocted a brilliant scheme to rule the underworld. Step one in this plan was to adopt a family, two girls and a boy, and then raise them to be the world’s deadliest assassins. As the trio grew older, they helped Fox dominate the Hong Kong underworld just as he had hoped. Yet, when Silver Fox (Moon Lee) and her sister (Yukari Oshima) take on a simple assassination job, things become far too complex. A van full of innocent children are accidentally killed in the midst of their assassination. While her sister has few issues putting this situation behind her, Silver Fox has her soul shattered by the experience. With Silver Fox still reeling from the guilt, the two girls are once again placed on another case. This time they have to travel out of the country and assassinate a man who holds the key to putting Fox in prison for the rest of his life. During this hit things go wrong yet again, and the two sisters are separated. Silver Fox is left with amnesia after an accident and she moves in with a retired Hong Kong cop (Sibelle Hu) and her brother Rocky (Ben Lam). Rocky has recently associated with a criminal organization who runs the local boxing racket, but he doesn’t realize the sort of trouble he is getting into. As Rocky makes this terrible mistake, Silver Fox may find herself in the crosshairs of both the local mob and even her own adopted father. |
| The Review |
|---|
)
)
)
)
Director Tony Liu is a filmmaker who was very familiar with this genre. Along with this film, in his career Liu directed Killer Angels, Devil Hunters, as well as Angel Terminators 2. In some ways, he is one of the few “auteurs” of this genre. His career travels back to the seventies, however, and he spent the better part of his career working as an actor. Although he didn’t gather a massive number of certifiable Western hits under his belt, he did direct the classic Three Evil Masters which featured Chen Kuan Tai. Also found in his filmography is Holy Flame of the Martial World and Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead (featuring Donnie Yen), but the sections of his filmography that stick out in my mind are his additions to the Girls with Guns genre. His successes with the genre obviously transition from his great knowledge of action cinema, and Dreaming the Reality certainly shows this. The action sequences are ridiculously well-choreographed, and there are numerous crazy stunts throughout the movie that will appease the young kid deep inside each of us. There comes a moment in the film where Moon Lee rides atop a luggage rack, and she does this while also firing round after round into a crowd of police officers who are currently chasing her. How can I deny the awesomeness? This section of the film, which follows Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima trying to escape an airport, turns out to be far larger than one might expect from a low budget action title like this. It eventually culminates in a stunt where Moon Lee jumps out of a second story building and then lands on top of a large truck. While that would be a big enough stunt for most movies, the girls with guns genre must take things a bit further. So, after landing on the parked bus, she continues to fall and she rolls off onto a moving car before finally smashing into the concrete! Following Moon’s amazing stunt (who I hope had a stunt double), we have Yukari Oshima going on a dirtbike chase that completely blows away her similar sequence in the classic Beauty Investigator. Although the action within Dreaming the Reality is quite sporadic, this one extended sequence more than makes up for it.
)
)
)
)
| The Conclusion |
|---|
